Z AUUisO, ft J . / U tVUV&ll/lrtsj, / ^ ^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/artofveniceacadeOOpott 3be art of tbe IPentce Bcabem? E be art Galleries of Europe Each one volume , large i 2 mo , cloth decorative , printed on a special feather-weight paper , pro- fusely illustrated with full-page plates in duo- gravure , $ 2.00 net d* NOW READY Zbc Brt of tbe Datlcan BY MARY KNIGHT POTTER Zb e Brt of tbe flMtti lpalace BY JULIA DE W. ADDISON Zbc Brt of tbe 3Lou\>re BY MARY KNIGHT POTTER Zbc Brt of tbe IDenlce Bcabem^ BY MARY KNIGHT POTTER Zbc Brt of tbe IRational Gallery BY JULIA DE W. ADDISON Other Volumes in Preparation d* L. C. PAGE & COMPANY Publishers, Boston, Mass. ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN By Titian {See page ibi) be Brt of tbe Dentce I ^ Bcabemv Containing a Brief History of the Building and of Its Collection of Paintings, as Well as Descriptions and Criticisms of many of the Principal Pictures and Their Artists By Mary Knight Potter Author of “ The Art of the Vatican,” “ The Art of the Louvre,” “ Love in Art,” etc. Illustrated Boston L. C. Page & Company MD CCCCVI Copyright , igoy By L. C. Page & Company (incorporated) All rights reserved Published October, 1905 COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H . Simonds CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE BUILDING A Gothic church Romanized, a Renaissance monastery and cloister modernized, this, largely, is the composite structure called the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice, In the city of archi- tecture etherealized, a combination like this stands little chance of being considered beautiful. Indeed, except for the importance of its contents, it is probable that no tourist and hardly a sojourner of months would pay much attention either to its imperfections and lack of cohesion as a whole, or to its very lovely bits of detail. These bits of detail include the unburned portion of Palladio’s famous cloister of the convent and three Gothic reliefs on its entrance wall, so ex- quisitely pure in style and so> original and unafraid 2 XTbe Brt of the IDenice Hcafcems in treatment that Ruskin does not hesitate to call them “ three of the most precious pieces of sculp- ture in Venice.” But who can stop to pick out such stranded excellences, when all about are the ever crowding glories of wholly perfect church and pal- ace? At its best, the Venice Academy is the result of a manifest and none too successful attempt to transform antagonistic architectural elements into a something homogeneous but entirely contrary to the initial purpose of any of its component parts. Perforce, therefore, the mechanism of its construc- tion, its humanness, so to say, is the most evident thing about it. It is this very humanness, this per- sistent betrayal of the “ hand of man,” that alone would relegate it to' an art far removed from that which created the golden facades that line the Grand Canal. For it is not alone poets or painters who have called the palaces and churches of Venice fairy- built domains or the architecture of a poet’s dreams. No traveller, surely, but has felt the intangible loveliness o-f those pilastered fronts, so delicate they seem like petrified lace, those windows and bal- conies with tracery of spiders’ weaving, those golden, ivory, rose-toned marble stairs that slip with iridescent sparkle into the lapping greenness of the waves about their base. And in it all, whatever else one finds, the hand of the builder is never on view. Concerning tbe JSuiibing 3 The most literal soul must feel it difficult to realize that these mansions and palaces and churches were reared brick by brick, stone by stone, cut and hammered and cemented, only day by day growing into a splendour that so completely blinds us to its builder’s hands. Only the Arabian Nights’ sort of achievements make a Venice seem possible. How can one ascribe its ethereal beauties to grimy mason and builder? Rather was it planned on Olympus, and Apollo 1 sang its formation. “ Frozen music,” as triumphs of architectural art have been called, never seems so exquisitely appro- priate a phrase as in Venice. That is what this Queen of the Adriatic most truly is. As if in sooth the god of music had sent to earth some rarest song that as it fell note by note turned into stone, — and Venice rose, — song incarnate, visible, undying melody. No wonder, then, that anything less beautiful than the general beautiful average of Venetian building seems wofully out of place. Not only is the Academy below this average architecturally, but one of the principal approaches to it, the great modern iron bridge which crosses the Grand Canal and reaches nearly to its entrance, is perhaps the ugliest blot in the entire city. Nothing could make it worse unless they should run over it an American line of trolley-cars. Compared with such blatant 4 TLbc Ert of tbe Denlce Ecabemp modern ironmongery, the Academy not only shows favourably, but, historically especially, it has much to interest the student. A map of Venice looks not unlike two clasping mittened hands, with the Grand Canal marking the inner outlines of the two. The Academy is placed on the inside curve of the thumb of the under hand, with the Salute at the tip of the same thumb. On the outer curve of the other thumb is the Piazza San Marco, not far from the line of the wrist and almost opposite the Salute. Thus the Academy is directly west of San Marco, separated from it by the width, and also by some little length, of the Grand Canal. The Campo della Carita, as is called the little Square of the Academy, got its name from the con- ventual church, Santa Maria della Carita, which was erected here about the middle of the thirteenth century by the Scuola della Carita, the first of the great brotherhoods to be founded in Venice. This Scuola had for its object the ransoming of Christian prisoners from the Turks or other heathen. By this time Byzantine art was beginning to lose its hold in Venice, and here and there the city was showing signs of an individual art of her own. Probably because of the almost continual feuds be- tween her and Florence, she drew her architects rather from Lombardy than from the Tuscan city. Concerning tbe Builbing 5 Whoever the architect of the Carita, he built it in the Gothic style, and, unlike most of the subse- quent architects of Venice, he was uninfluenced by the Roman or Grecian art. Made of brick, it was not till generations after that its Gothic win- dows were torn out and Romanesque ones substi- tuted. The introduction of these Romanesque open- ings was doubtless the result of an attempt to bring into better conformity the old church with the newer convent placed against it. It has only made the patchiness of the entire structure more notice- able. At the time when the church was first built, Ven- ice was already on the highroad of her prosperity. Not yet under the dominion of the fateful Ten, she was governed by a council actually elected by the people from the people. It was not till 1297 that this council had to be chosen from among the de- scendants of those who 1 had once had seats in the body. She was still in fact what for fourteen cen- turies she was in name, a republic. The practical aim of this first Scuola of Venice was characteristic of the Venetian’s religious life. He was much more ready to fight for the Church or even to give great sums to its treasury than to adopt fasting and prayer, seclusion and abstinence as signs of his devotional life. Life, life in all its fulness, its joys, its excesses, was, even in the thir- 6 Gbe Brt o t tbe IPenice Bcakem*? teenth century, typical of Venice. Yet she was a loyal daughter to the Church, serving her with a stout right arm when needed, or with keen-witted craft when blows were of no avail. Fairly repre- sentative is the story of how she forced Frederick Barbarossa to seek pardon from Pope Alexander III., whom the Emperor had shortly before driven out of Rome. It is best not to inquire too deeply into the chronology or historical date of the legend. Such as it is, it shows the proud spirit of the Vene- tians as well as if it could be accepted literally. When Frederick Barbarossa expelled Alexander from Rome, the old man took refuge in Venice. Here, the legend goes on to say, he arrived, a men- dicant in rags, and his first night he spent sleeping on the ground near the Church of S. Apollinare. After this he wandered about the narrow twisting alleys till he reached the monastery of the Carita. Here he stayed for six months, serving the brother- hood in the capacity of scullion. Finally, a Vene- tian who had been in Rome recognized him, sent word to the Doge, and the Pope was led forth from his hiding-place to receive the homage of the city. When Frederick swore that unless the Venetians gave up the pontiff he would plant his Eagles in San Marco, the city answered by sending a fleet which defeated the Emperor’s son, made Otto prisoner, and ultimately compelled the German Concerning tbe Buiibing 7 Emperor to> bow in abject submission to the rein- stated Pope. A very effective tale, with certain amusing elements. For unless the Scuola della Carita existed nearly a century before the date of its founding, 1260, Alexander could hardly, in 1175, have taken refuge within its walls! Until 1552 the Gothic church, with what adja- cent buildings it owned, remained practically un- changed. Venice herself had gone from one triumphant splendour to another. Still a republic in name, she was actually the most unrestrained of oligarchies. The will, the caprice of the secret Three, the inner circle of the Ten, was “ All the law and the Prophets ” for a city that was already begin- ning to show signs of the wreck her profligacy was to make of her. And yet, as Sismondi states, even while she destroyed every liberty at home, she helped those who strove for it abroad. She upheld Henry VIII. against the Pope; a century later she was an ally of the Dutch; she publicly sup- ported the German Protestants during the thirty years’ war; she assisted Bethlen-Gabor and Ragot- ski in Hungary ; she aided the Prince of Piedmont against Philip III. of Spain, as well as the Prot- estant house of Savoy against the Catholics; she declared for Henry IV. against the League, and even lent him money for which she would accept no bonds in return, It has been said of Venice that 8 Ube Hr t of tbe IDentce Hcabemy “ for a thousand years she fought for life ; for three hundred years she invited death; the battle was rewarded, the call was heard.” If, in 1552, her death was already presaged, few of her own citizens could have believed it. Not only were magnificence, profusion of wealth, every gorgeous splendour characteristic of the life of her nobles, but there were practically no poor within her bor- ders. And it is certainly true that “ if her people had not liberty, they had order, law, and a species of justice. . . . Their taxes were light and equally imposed, and they were economically expended for the glory of the country.” A motto of the state was, “ Justice in the Palace and bread in the Piazza.” Her power had swept far beyond her own bound- aries, and by the end of the fifteenth century she stretched toward the sea to Dalmatia and Crete and inward to Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, and Bergamo, and was almost at the very gates of Milan. These cities she acquired by conquest dur- ing the fifteenth century, and in the market-place of each was set up the Lion of San Marco, a visible emblem of their subjection. The Republic’s aggrandizement was typical of both private and institutional life in Venice. Noth- ing was too rich, too costly, too gorgeous, for city or noble, for church or Scuola. It is probably due to the late adoption by Venice of the Renaissance Concerning tbe JSuiibing 9 order of architecture that the Scuola della Carita had not a century before built anew. As it was, in 1552, they called the architect then most famous throughout Italy, and gave him orders to construct a convent worthy of their own importance and of his genius. Palladio was born in Vicenza, a town near Ven- ice, in 1508. There is little known of his family or of his first studies. But however else he may have acquired his architectural knowledge, he was undoubtedly largely indebted to his visits to Rome for much of his later success. Gio. Giorgio Tres- sim>, a countryman of his, took him to Rome three different times, the last of these trips ending in 1547. While there he spent uncounted hours in measuring the ancient buildings and making sketches of everything he could use to advantage in his profession. After his return to Vicenza his fame spread all through Italy, and when Paul III. was Pope he invited him to Rome once more for consultation about the works in progress at St. Peter’s. Back at Vicenza again, he was fairly over- whelmed with orders, but of a private rather than public character. By far the larger part of Pal- ladio’s work was the construction of palace and mansion, for which his materials, of course, were largely of brick and terra-cotta. He had few of the chances showered upon Sansovino to show what io xrbe Brt of tbe Venice Bcabemp he might have done with great public edifices where his materials could be chosen from richest stone and marble. He seems, however, to have gloried in the very restriction of his means, proving again and again that not material but design, not im- posing show but artistic appropriateness, are what make a really exquisite building. No one, it has been said repeatedly, ever used brick so perfectly, with so thorough an appreciation and understand- ing of its tremendous possibilities. He has been extraordinarily praised by many noted critics, and condemned by many others. To- day, perhaps, the feeling is against rather than for him. It has been claimed, with undoubted reason, that he not infrequently let his windows break into architraves ; that he enclosed windows within friezes, that he made doors lower than windows, and that he was often guilty of having both deco- rated and undecorated windows in the same build- ing. His pediments, the critics aver, were frequently too heavy, his intercolumniations too wide, and there were not seldom a hardness and monotony of detail. In spite of these or more faults, it can be said that he made an earnest and not unsuccessful attempt to return to the simplicity and classic lines of Greece. He was a classicist of the classicists, and his ideal was found in the rules of Vitruvius. About 1 550 he was called from Vicenza to 1 Venice, Concerning tbe BuilMng II where Sansovino was getting old and infirm. His first commission was to construct a monastery for the Lateran Canons della Carita, and this order was followed by others, the most important of which made him the architect of San Giorgio Maggiore and II Redentore. That Palladio him- self greatly liked his designs for the convent of the Carita Brotherhood is shown by the fact that he uses them as illustration in one of his great volumes on architecture. With it he gives com- plete explanation of all its parts. Critics have generally agreed that these designs for this monas- tery of the first Brotherhood of Venice were of real beauty, of stateliness, and of charm. Unfor- tunately, the building itself was never finished, and of the part which he did complete little enough remains to-day. He wrote of it that he wished to make it, so far as possible, like a dwelling of the “ Ancients.” It faced the Grand Canal and was joined to the old thirteenth-century church, with the lines of which, of course, it had scarcely anything in accord. In general plan it consisted of a large and smaller court about which the cloister and conventual apartments were built. The outer atrium, or vesti- bule, was Corinthian in style. On each side of it he placed four columns of the Composite order, and at the left and right of the vestibule was an irreg- 12 Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabemi? ularly shaped room, called a tablino. The one on the left was used as the Sacristy, and is the only one now standing. Beyond this vestibule, with its side arms of tablini, came the great court, its three stories separated by the columns of different orders, — Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Above this last line were windows which gave light to cells lining the sides. The columns supported the wall of the building which separated the chambers or cells of the galleries. By the side near the church at the left of the entrance next the Sacristy, was a wind- ing staircase, — the beauty of whose curves and decorations Goethe praised so enthusiastically. With the exception of the right arm of the cloister and that opposite the vestibule entrance, this was all actually finished by Palladio. He had also com- pleted the little piece which still exists to'-day, — ■ the archway spanning the public alley by the side of the convent, and connecting it with the building opposite it. The fagade on the Grand Canal was planned to be practically as we see it to-day, — a marble front, severely classic in its lines, with four Corinthian columns across its face and two smaller ones flanking each side of the doorway. This, how- ever, was not built from Palladio’s designs, but from Giorgio Massari’s, an architect living and working a century later. On November 16, 1630, the larger part of the Concerning tbe BullMna 13 work of the architect of Vicenza was burned to the ground. Palladio had erected for the brotherhood a little wooden theatre in the vestibule of the con- vent, and it is thought that the fire started there. To-day the only parts of the building which are Palladio’s own, are the entrance to the winding staircase at the left, the /Sacristy at the left of the vestibule, that side of the convent bordering the Canal St. Agnes, and the line of pillars on the same side of the cloister. Up to 1797, though the completion of Massari’s fagade was practically the only attempt made to restore the ravages of the fire of 1630, the Brother- hood of the Carita continued to use it as their official residence. Lack of money very likely was the reason for not attempting any restoration. For if, during the century preceding her fall, Venice threw money like a desperate bankrupt bound for one long debauch before the end of all things, she no longer spent it for the relief of Christian cap- tives. No longer, even, did she spend it to maintain the political and territorial supremacy she had en- joyed for so many generations. From the Peace of Passarowitz, terminating the War of the Suc- cession, a war in which Venice took no part, she having refused to fight against Austria, from that time began the oppression by Austria of the once dauntless Queen of the Adriatic. Her first hurnili- i4 Ufoe Brt ot tbe IDentce Hcabemp ation was when she was forced to return Morea to the Turks, the prize captured for her by Moro- sini. Peace was made in 1719, and from then, for eighty years, Venice, who for centuries had con- quered all her enemies, made no war and was insulted by all the belligerents of every side. This astounding apathy was caused by the rottenness of her government, by the weakness, sloth, and wicked- ness of her nobles, by the unparalleled debauchery of her whole public and private life. The last days of Venice are synonymous for license, for voluptu- ousness, for horrible indecency, and for the worst form of oligarchical government. At the end of the eighteenth century the reign of Venice even in her own borders was practically over. If it had not been Napoleon, some other would have swept her into his domains. That other undoubtedly would have been Austria, as indeed later on it was. From 1798, when she fell before the French armies, till 1866, when she finally became a part of United Italy, Venice was the prey first of France, then of Austria, once more of France, and again of Aus- tria. Then for a short fifteen months, by hard- earned victories, she took her historic title as a republic, only to be reconquered by Radetzky and once more joined to Austria, under whose rule she was held till United Italy claimed and won her. During all these changes the old convent of the Concerning tbe JButlMng *5 Carita remained what Napoleon had turned her into. As early as 1670 some Venetian gentlemen had started art classes within its walls, and a cen- tury later a regular art school was established there under the control of the state. This existed up to the last days of the Venetian Republic. During Napoleon’s investiture of Venice his troops used the building as barracks. Perhaps because of the school which he found there the general chose the building as a permanent museum of art. Something much more in the Corsican’s line than monastery or convent ! Everywhere after his conquering armies followed the trail of closed monastery, con- vent, and church. When he entered Venice he found more than a hundred churches. He destroyed or put to other uses almost half of these last, and, with the exception of that of the Armenians, sup^- pressed every convent and monastery in the city. Into this of the Scuola di Santa Maria della Carita he brought such pictures from other closed churches and convents as, for one reason or another, he did not choose to send to France. So was opened the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. It may thus be said to owe its origin to Napoleon’s dislike for monastic life and his distrust of too great power of the Church. Up to 1829 practically nothing was done to make the half-burned building more worthy of the treas- 16 XTbe Hrt of tbe Dentce Hcabcmp ures within its walls. Even the ravages made by the troops that camped there had hardly been re- paired. Finally, in that year, the work of rebuild- ing, under the direction of Francesco Lazzari, was commenced. No effort was spared to make it as nearly as possible as Palladio had planned and partially built it. So earnest w'as Signor Lazzari to- accomplish this that he had his brick and terra- cottas made and cut by a man who was a master cutter of stone, one Antonio Risegatti, while over him, to see that each piece was exact, was put Signor Antonio Mauro. It was extremely difficult to get these bricks and terra-cottas of the consist- ency, construction, and colour of Palladio’s, for, since 1700, the old method of manufacturing them had largely disappeared. When the work was finished, in 1830, the old monastery, though no longer used by its disbanded brotherhood, was in the main what Palladio, the Renaissance architect, had meant it should be : “ A building in the style of the Ancients,” - — classic in its spirit, in its lines, and in its measurements. Less successful were the alterations of the buildings con- nected with it, especially of the old Gothic church of the Carita. To lead from the reincarnated Palladian structure into this, it was necessary to sacrifice many of its Gothic characteristics. One of the most lamentable acts was transforming the tall, THE VENICE ACADEMY Concerning tbe Bnilbing 17 narrow Gothic windows into 1 low, Romanesque ones. It is easy to see how little outward homogeneity there can be in such a conglomerate mass of build- ings. The classic faqade of the old-time convent suffers from its joining to the Gothic church with which it is connected no less than the church itself. Within, the fine proportions and the beauty of the columns of the cloister, the splendid decoration and noble lines of some of the rooms, make less keenly noticeable the incongruity of the whole. On the outside, too>, are the three relics of the Gothic days whose charm no Palladian faqade can dim. These are the marble reliefs which Ruskin, for once agree- ing with his brother critics, praises so highly. They were executed in 1370 and 1379, and, Gothic as they are, are three of the very earliest examples of Venetian art when it was first beginning to break away from its Byzantine traditions. In the centre, over the Gothic doorway which • f was one of the early entrances to- the Scuola, is the relief representing the Madonna and Child, with attendant angels, set in k high-arched framing. The baby Jesus has his little hands extended as if in greeting. St. Leonard is at the left of the entrance with the Gothic cusped framing coming slightly above the upper curve of the door. The saint, who was the patron of captives, is represented is Zhc Hrt of tbe IDertice Hcabem^ with his fetters, and by him are two members of the Brotherhood of the Carita. On the other side is St. Christopher, bent under the weight of the Christ. That none of these figures really stands, and that their construction in general is full of archaisms, perhaps only makes more pronounced the deep religious feeling shown in them all. It was long after the restoration of the building before the pictures were hung with any regard for lighting, school, or date of execution. As the years went on the original collection placed there by Napoleon was greatly augmented. Some of the newly acquired canvases were obtained by purchase, but a large number were gifts. Among those most generous in their donations were Girolamo Molin and Bernardo Renier. But it was not till 1895 that they were at length hung with some regard for system and chronology. As the gallery stands to- day it consists of twenty rooms, two* corridors, and one so-called loggia. These are all in that part of the building once used as monastery except for two rooms which are in the church. The lower part of Santa Maria della Carita is now taken for the Academy art school. In spite of the rearrangement of 1895, that there is still something to be done toward its betterment is evident. The unaccountable introduction of much earlier pictures into rooms containing principally Concerning tbe JSutlMng 1 9 works of the late Renaissance is evidence of the in- completeness of the scheme of placing’. At the same time, if there is ever any excuse for the dis- regard of school and time in the hanging of a gallery, it is to be found here, rather than in almost any other of the world’s noted galleries. The Academy, to be sure, has pictures not only by paint- ers from all parts of Italy, but the Flemish, the Dutch, the German, and even the French schools are all represented. Yet it is safe to say that most students of art, as well as almost all travellers, pay scant attention to any but one of these schools. And this is not wholly because the foreign painters are in the main very poorly represented. Rather it is because the greatest painters of the Vene- tian Renaissance are here in the plenitude of their powers. And be the student’s or traveller’s stay in Venice ever so long there is never time for even the greatest of their masterpieces alone. Only in Venice can the Venetian painters be truly known, and only in the Academy can so many of them be seen together. If some of their supremest works are in the Ducal Palace, the Frari, San Giorgio Maggiore, or other church and palace, many of these in the Academy are hardly less beautiful, and in their variety and quantity furnish a truer esti- mate of the real scope of the art of their creators. Like the city whose name christens this mar- 20 Ufoe Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabemp vellous art of North Italy, the collection here is unique. It must be judged by different standards from those applied to the other schools of the Renaissance, as truly as Venice can be compared with no other city in the world. Like the Queen of the Adriatic herself, its beauty is its own beauty, transcending even in its limitations, enslaving even in its imperfections, till one forgets Michelangelo the giant, Leonardo the wizard, Raphael the pure spirit. Paraphrasing St. Victor’s homage to Venice, it is, perhaps, not too much to say that the other schools have their admirers, the Venetian its lovers. CHAPTER II. R00M J, _ SALA DEI MAESTRI PRIMITIVI The room of the early masters, numbered i on the plan, the room into which the entrance stairs lead, was the so-called Great Hall of the old Scuola. It still has the richly carved and decorated Gothic ceiling which was executed for the Brotherhood in the latter half of the fifteenth century. For many years it was supposed that the eight-winged cherubs, which, interlocking and interlacing as they do form the principal part of the decorative scheme, made a sort of rebus of the name of the brother who paid for the ornamentation of this room of his Scuola. But authorities now state that Cherubino Aliotti was never a member of the confraternity, and that Thomas Cavazzo was the brother who gave most of the funds for the work. Marco Cozzi of Vicenza was the artist chosen for the task, and the beauty, quaintness, and originality of his de- sign are as apparent to-day as they must have been five hundred years ago. This elaborate carving makes both background and framing for a centra 21 22 Ube Hrt of tbe Denice Hcabems painted medallion and four corner medallions, as well as for the sixty-eight portraits in the arches below. The old central medallion, which was a carving representing the Madonna sheltering a num- ber of friars under her wide mantle, is replaced by a panel painted by Alvise Vivarini, showing God the Father surrounded by cherubim. The panel was originally part of a ceiling in the Scuola of S. Girolamo. In the corners of the ceiling are the prophets Isaiah, Obadiah, Micah, and Habakkuk, brought here from the Scuola of the Madonna del Parto', at Padua. They were painted by Domenico Campagnola. The sixty-eight portraits making the cornice are the work of pupils of the Academy dur- ing the years 1849-55, an d are supposed to be truth- ful portrayals of the most celebrated painters of all times. All these paintings, though of minor im- portance as paintings, fit admirably into the general scheme of decoration, and with the elaborately carved woodwork make an extraordinarily rich and glowing interior in which the very spirit of the early Venetian Renaissance seems to live again. Although the room does not contain all the ex- amples the Academy owns of the works of the earli- est painters of Northern Italy, most of the Primi- tives are to be found here. From one point of view these magnificently framed anconas and votive pictures are singularly uninteresting. Compared CEILING OF THE SALA DEI MAESTRI PRIMITIVI By Marco Cozzi 'Room IK — Sala bet /iDaestrt iprtmitipt 23 with works by Florentine painters of the same epoch, they show an amazing lack of knowledge of draw- ing, of construction, of perspective, and indeed of most of the fundamental rules that govern the art of painting. The figures are angular and ugly, the faces immobile, vacuous in expression, and deficient in cranium construction, there is little or no idea of composition, and what there is is generally so involved and disconnected that an attempt at straightening out the unbalanced parts into' a co- herent whole is mostly fruitless. Only in colouring does the school show at this early stage any of the attributes that were to make it so famous a century later. It is curious that Venice, who led the world in industrial, commercial, mechanical, and political fields, should have been so far behind the rest of Italy in art. Not till the first half of the fifteenth century, nearly a hundred years behind Florence, does Venetian art evince, an inclination to depart from 1 its strict Byzantine traditions and principles. Gradually, then, the rigidity and angularity of the Byzantine draperies began to fall into 1 longer, easier, simpler folds, the colouring becoming more trans- parent and the flesh-tones growing softer and warmer. It is not definitely decided what it was that gave this late impetus to Venetian art. The critics do not find the school of Giotto responsible 24 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabem# for the gradual change, but they do discern signs of the influence of the Gothic style, particularly, of course, in sculpture. The more strictly Venetian peculiarities of the school seem indigenous to the city itself. It has been compared to the Flemish school in certain ways. For instance, the Flemings, like the Venetians, preferred their pictures for the domestic altar or as votive pictures, and therefore they were generally made on much smaller lines than the huge altar-pieces of Central Italy, where a “ whole world of events and thoughts find expres- sion .’ 7 Whatever it was that finally woke the paint- ers of North Italy into a life that had vitality, power, originality, and beauty it is only the student of art w|ho can find much indication of this awakening in most of these gorgeously framed altar-pieces. But, as has been said, in even the crudest, most archaic of these pictures of Madonna and saint, there is almost always the charm of pure, vibrant colour, and there is something more. Later Venetian art has often been accused of lacking the religious feel- ing, of showing, even in its pictures for church and convent, little of the piety so essential a part of the art of the other schools of Italy. In the beginning, however, there was no 1 such lack. In the most hope- less of these early panels, from an artistic or tech- nical point of view, there is always a very real and living religious sentiment. Fra Angelico himself, IRoom 1L — Sala fcei /IDaestn primitivi 25 though he had infinitely more skill, had hardly deeper or more ecstatic vision than some of these first painters of the Venetian Renaissance. Along with this feeling for colour and this devout spirit, they had another attribute that, later, was to be one of the dominant notes of the North Italian painters. This was their sense of reality. In these first at- tempts it is mainly shown, to be sure, in the pains- taking and exact delineation of gilded ornament and embroidered borders and figured brocade, but it is none the less apparent, and must be considered an integral part of the art of every Venetian. One of the earliest painters represented in this first room is Antonio Veneziano, the date of whose birth Vasari gives as 1312. By Vasari, too>, as well as other authorities, he is called a pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, but this is now considered a doubtful claim. He was at least a contemporary of Agnolo, and his works at Pisa show strongly the influence of Giotto. Indeed, he has' been assigned a place as one of the most important links in the chain that reaches from Giotto to' Masaccio. Any great ability at composition he had not; and the flatness of his tones precluded any effective modelling in flesh or costume. His colour was very pure, rosy, with much transparence, but his greatest forte lay in depicting emotion and feeling. His figures are gen- erally full of expression, an expression, as Vasari 26 Uhc Brt of tbe IDentce Bcafcemp indicates, true to the character they are supposed to possess. His most noted works are his frescoes in the Campo Santo> at Pisa, Antonio, though credited with being a Venetian, must have been educated far from Venice, probably in Tuscany. For it was not till after Gentile da Fabriano’s visit to Venice that Venetian artists began to throw off the Byzantine traditions, — tra- ditions which influenced Antonio as little as they influenced Giotto himself. He was a Florentine in manner, training, and expression. Vasari says that the envy of other artists in Venice caused him to be so badly treated that, after working in his native city a short time, he left it never to 1 return. His little triptych here recalls but slightly either his style or his ability. It is a painting on wood, representing Christ on the Cross, with the Madonna and St. John. Below, the Madonna is again shown holding the baby Jesus to her breast. On one of the wings of the triptych is painted the Annunci- ation, on the other Sts. Jerome and John the Bap- tist. The traces of signature have been made to read “ Antonius Ven 1358,” but the marking is not definite enough for one to be sure that this is its real reading. And, like many of the other early paintings, this may one day be assigned to some other artist. How little the Venetians of even the commence- ANNUNCIATION Antonio Veneziano V ■ IRoont 1 L — Sala Set /iDaestri flSnntitivi 27 ment of the fifteenth century had advanced beyond the rigidity and hard and fast rules of the Greek style of painting, is vividly apparent in many of the altar-pieces in this room. In none, perhaps, is it more evident than in the huge ancona, said to be by Lorenzo of Venice, or Lorenzo Veneziano, as he is called. It is a huge Gothic framed affair of eighteen compartments, three stories, so to speak, in height, and with the many divisions separated by pilasters and heavy stucco' work of gold. The central portion represents the Annunciation, with a tiny figure of the donor, Domenico Lion, at the Virgin’s feet. It was originally in the Church of S. Antonio di Castello, and was painted by order of Domenico, at a cost, it is said, of three hundred gold ducats. A large part of the sum, it is suppos- able, must have gone into the expansive gold fram- ing. Over the Annunciation, in the upper division, is the figure of the Almighty, with a cherub above each outraised hand. This portion has been as- signed to> Benedetto Diana, and also to Bissolo. Below the Annunciation are small half-length fig- ures of the five Hermit Saints, as they are called. The sixteen other compartments, all holding saints, are arranged two by two on each side of the Annun- ciation and the panel of the Blessing Father. Between each of these pairs, painted on the sepa- 28 ube Brt of tbe tDentce Bcabems rating pillars, are thirty-six more little full-length figures. Of the two other panels ascribed to Lorenzo in this room, one is a tempera painting on wood of Sts. Peter and Mark. This is signed “ MCCCLXXI. Mense Novemb. Laurent, pinxit.” It was brought to the Academy from the Ufficio 1 della Seta, Rialto. St. Peter is at the left in a blue robe and yellow mantle lined with red, turning three-quarters to the right, and carrying the keys of his office in. his right hand, a roll of paper in his left. St. Mark is at the right, in a blue mantle lined with green, his right hand lifted, holding a book in his left. The background, as in all these earliest paintings, is gold. The third Lorenzo is also' an Annunciation. Above this central compartment is a representation of the symbols of the Trinity, and at the sides are Sts. John the Baptist and Nicholas, Sts. James and Stephen. It once made the central part of an altar- piece in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. It also is in tempera, and is on wood. The Virgin in the central division is at the right, her hands crossed on her breast. She is seated, turning to the left toward the kneeling, golden-winged angel who, in a blue robe and rose-coloured mantle lined with green, is holding a sceptre in one hand. Layard says of this that, though it is painted in the usual IRoom 1 L — Sala Dei Maestri primitm 29 severe style, it shows in the heads a softness of expression, and that the draperies fall in easy and rounding folds. If Antonio’s art is mostly Florentine in style, Lorenzo’s is intensely Venetian. He painted in tempera, showing little ease in treatment or man- ner, with a solidity and opaqueness that emphasize the awkward construction of his figures and the heaviness of their garments. Like all the men of his time, Fabriano not excepted, he seemed more careful in the rendering of architectural details, in the framing of his scenes, so to speak, than in the scenes themselves. Most of his figures are outlined with rigidity, with no flow of curve or form to counterbalance the unbroken edges. The exact dates of his birth and death are not known, but he was working at about the same time as Niccolo Semitecolo'. This last named painter was one of the earliest Venetians whose style shows some slight influence of the Gothic upon that which was in the main still strongly Byzantine^ He has been likened to Duccio, but Duccio’s excellences are not generally accorded him. He was living as late as 1400, and it has been questioned whether he and Niccolo di Maestro Pietro are not one and the same. The three altar-pieces in the Academy, one ascribed to Semitecolo, one to Niccolo di Maestro Pietro, and 30 Zhc Brt of tbe Denice Bcafc>ent$ the third catalogued as by an unknown Venetian of the fourteenth century, all have many of the characteristics generally given Semitecolo. They are in elaborate Gothic framework, in many divi- sions, with little idea of composition or even of coherence in the scenes, and with unconnected inci- dents in unrelated lives frequently introduced in the bordering or corner pictures. Like many of the pictures in this first Venetian room, the effect of the elaborate golden frame and the Byzantine in- sistence upon gorgeousness of robe and mantle, give them a certain uniform richness and splendour that, to the untrained eye, make them all seem extremely alike, so that it is only by careful at- tention to what appears mere detail that one comes to observe how different they all really are. Most of these altar-pieces are in many divisions, sur- rounded with one outer encircling framework. In the Coronation of the Virgin, for instance, which, credited by the catalogue to an unknown Venetian, has before been ascribed to Semitecolo, are numberless divisions and openings of various shapes and sizes. The central one shows the figure of Jesus placing a crown on the head of his Mother, who is surrounded by angels playing on musical instruments. At their feet are two that might be the forerunners of the delightful putti of Bellini. This is perhaps, or probably, not by Semitecolo, but CORONATION IRoom 1 L — Sala Dei /IDaestd primitivi 31 the minor panels are considered to be more in his style. These, on the right and left of this central division, are smaller, with trefoil-shaped tops. Here are the Nativity, the Baptism, the Last Sup- per, the Betrayal, the Road to Calvary, the Cruci- fixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. In the last, with strict adherence to Byzantine tradi- tions, the figure of Jesus is placed within an oval- shaped glory made of golden rays on a blue ground. Above, on each side of the central panel, are six more scenes, most of them subjects from the life of St. Francis. Between the principal ones are single figures, each placed in a regular niche, and perhaps meant to> represent the four Evangelists. At the right corner above the central compartment is King David holding a scroll with the words, “ Adorabo te,” etc., and at the left Isaiah, with another Latin-inscribed scroll. This is the picture which Ruskin, praising excessively, calls the “ Vic- ar’s picture/’ The colour of the flesh-tones throughout is olive brown, and the folds of the garments are not in- dicated by light and shade, but by lines of gold, white, or local colour. Now and then certain touches of naturalism occur, noticeably where, in the Crucifixion, the soldiers are depicted playing at “ Mora,” an old Italian game, instead of, as is 32 flbe Hrt of tbe Denice Hcabemg usual in later pictures, casting lots for Christ’s garments. A more interesting, if less elaborate, production in the same room is the one called the Virgin and Child Adored by the Donor. The Virgin sits with the baby on her lap, the words “ Ego sum via veritas et Vita ” on the leaves of the open book which he holds. The Mother is clad in a crimson robe overlaid with a golden flower pattern, and a blue mantle of greenish tone fastened at her breast with a cherub-headed brooch. The Child is dressed in yellow. Behind each head is a gold nimbus, a cross outlined in that of Jesus, a crown in Mary’s. Upon pedestals, serving as arms to the throne, are two angels playing upon mandolins, and above are five other little denizens of heaven also' sounding their musical instruments and lifting a red drapery. At the left the donor, Vulciano' Belgarzone, kneels, dressed in a crimson gown and white cap. The figures are about half life-size, except for Belgar- zone, who is considerably smaller. The painting has a gold background, and the panel is arched at the top. Much of the work is rather crude, and the faces have little real expression. The third example attributed to Semitecolo 1 is another Coronation of the Virgin, and it has been given great praise for its devotional feeling. It is very archaic in its treatment of form and compo- IRoom IT. — Sala bet flftaestri prtmtttpt 33 sition, of course, like all of these, but it does evince an advance over the old Byzantine art. Mary and Jesus are shown sitting side by side on a sort of settle of Gothic build. Behind is a crimson curtain supported by angels, some of their heads indicating an appreciation of cranium anatomy rare with Semitecolo. There is the usual gold background, and the framing has a triple-arched top. In this room are two 1 pictures by the little known painter called Simone da Cusighe and Simone dal Peron, these both names of villages near Bergamo. He lived sometime in the latter half of the four- teenth century, dying before 1416. He was thus a Friulian, and his works show little beyond the archaic tendencies that seem to overwrap Friuli till the time came when, with one bound, she swept into a place made for her by such men as Pordenone and Pellegrino. His two pictures in this room are the altar-piece, the Virgin of Pity and* the so-called Entombment, the latter consisting of four small panels, repre- senting different scenes ,from the life of Christ. The Virgin of Pity is an ancona divided into nine parts. In the central and much larger division is the Madonna, standing, holding out her robe on each side. The babe Jesus is painted enclosed within an oval framing placed directly over her breast, a background of golden rays behind him. Beneath 34 tl be Brt of tbe IDettice Bcabems the ample folds of her blue mantle with its green lining are the crowding penitents who give the name to the picture. In the side panels above and below are painted incidents from the life of St. Bartholomew. In 1415 Jacobello del Fiore was “ gastaldo,” or chief officer of the guild of painters in Venice. His Coronation of the Virgin, once in the Cathedral of Ceneda, and now in this room of the Academy, is one of his most authentic works. Kugler says of it that “ it is a confused and scarcely intelligible composition, containing a large number of clumsily drawn figures, angels playing on musical instru- ments in architectural niches, the Evangelists and crowd of Prophets, Saints, and Martyrs, over- charged with gilding and gilt stucco in relief, — showing this painter to have been equally deficient in skill and imagination. It has, however, lost much of its original character by repainting.” Other critics treat it even more harshly, and Jacobello’s absolute lack of knowledge of anatomy or any kind of human construction, his awkward, angular motions, his total disregard of any laws of composition or even ordinary sequence, all this is blazoned forth in pictures made of elaborate stucco and golden work, filled with glaring colours, crowded figures with neither rhyme nor reason in their placing, their surroundings, or their selection. IRoom 1 L — &ala Dei ZlDaestn 35 He was not the only painter of what Vasari calls the “ Greek style/’ to introduce various-sized figures into the same composition, but he apparently never even heard of the desirability of keeping some sort of relationship between those supposed to be within the same picture plane. And yet, as has been pointed out, if careful study is given to 1 this Coro- nation, or Paradise, as it is also called, it will be seen that he did make an attempt to vary his figures and to give some sort of life and animation to their movements and expressions. Though there is, as Crowe and Cavalcaselle justly remark, no shading or modelling, with the figures all in strict outline and with the spaces filled with rough and clumsy distemper, and though the drawing is absolutely hopeless, still, the student does find, if only by study, something beyond the art of the Byzantine painters whose works had for so long been Venice’s only pictorial expression. The Coronation is nearly square in shape, with its top arched. The centre of the composition is occupied by a two-part, throne, elaborately inlaid and overhung with two canopies. Beneath these hangings sits Jesus, placing a crown on Mary’s head. The lower part of the throne is separated into niches, the upper holding the four Evangelists, three of them with book and pen in hand, the fourth with book and knife. In the lower line are seven 36 T £ be Brt of tfoe IDenice Bcafcemp angels bearing musical instruments. Cherubim and seraphim stand right and left of the throne, their heads coming one above the other in regular order. Next are rows of saints and martyrs, all extrav- agantly robed. In the extreme foreground, near the lowest step of the throne, is the Bishop of Ceneda, his mitre on one side, holding his crozier and kneeling in adoration. The principal figures are perhaps one-third life-size, the rest smaller. The old frame of this picture, which was thrown away, is said to have been dated 1430. The same room holds two more of Jacobello’s works. The one called Justice is a triptych, with the allegorical figure in the middle, Michael on the left, and Gabriel on the right. This he was com- missioned to paint for the tribunal of the “ Pro- prio ” in 1421. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle say that in it he displays “ incorrectness of drawing, tastelessness of embossed ornament, and tawdriness of drapery.” Justice is seated in full face on two lions. Her crown, and much of the simulated embroideries of her dress are all gold embossed. Her robe is gray, her mantle red ; she holds in her right hand a sword, and in her left a pair of scales. A Latin-written scroll is behind her head. Michael, the angel, is seen in golden armour trampling on the dragon which he is about to pierce with his uplifted sword. IRoom l.~ Sala Del ZlDaestrt primitive 37 In his left hand he carries a pair of scales and a scroll with more Latin inscription. Toward the left comes the angel Gabriel, clad in a yellow robe and white mantle, bearing a lily and still another written scroll. The third panel, the Virgin and Child, depicts a lot of tiny penitents huddled beneath the Ma- donna’s robe. It shows the Venetian’s faults in even stronger relief than these others display them. Though in the works of these men can be dis- cerned some slight advance over the petrified By- zantine art, till then ruling supreme in Venice, it is not with them that real progress is seen. Far ahead of any of their accomplishments rank the works of even the first of the Vivarini, a school of painters originating in the island of Murano, which was one of the islands within the Venetian borders. Under the title of the Vivarini are known a number of painters of different generations. They are called not alone by that name, however, but are frequently given their first name in conjunction with that of their home, Murano. This island of Venice, then, may be considered as the starting- point of Venetian art. It was the seat of the glass manufactories, and here were made many of the mosaics for which Venice was famous. Antonio and Giovanni da Murano may properly be called the founders of the school. They worked mostly 38 Ube Brt of tbe Dentce BcabeniE together, and signed their names often as “ Jo- hannes Alemannus et Antonius de Murano,” Johannes thus proudly blazoning his German origin. He is supposed to have derived his artistic inherit- ance from the school of Cologne, Antonius his from Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello. The two men worked together perhaps for ten years, probably till 1450. The great altar-piece, called Paradise, which is in this first room, is now thought to be only a copy by Giambone of the one which the two painters executed for San Pantaleone in 1444. There is still some doubt, however, as to which is the origi- nal work. In any case, both are SO' tremendously repainted that it is impossible to form much idea of their first estate. It is generally conceded that the upper part of the one in the Academy was added by Basaiti. The picture represents a great concourse of saints, angels, doctors of the Church, and the four Evangelists, variously grouped about the Almighty, Christ, and Mary, who are in the upper part of a double-tiered and high-domed throne. Mary bends toward her son, while he places a crown upon her head. Behind, and slightly over them, is the Lord Almighty, a hand on the shoulder of each, and be- tween Him and the other two, the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. This part of the throne rests PARADISE By Antonio and Giovanni Vivarini IRooin IE — Sala fcet Maestri prtmttirt 39 on pillars with golden stuccoed capitals, and under- neath it is a crowd of little angels, bearing the in- struments of the Passion. They are standing upon the platform which makes the lower part of the throne, and are somewhat raised above the four disciples, who, two on each side, are within the curving armlike projections of the construction. Back of these arms, but on a level with the Evan- gelists, are St. Gregory, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Nicholas. Ranged tier over tier on each side, above these, are the ranks of the blessed, each with his or her halo, all robed in richest gold bro- cades. In composition, they make two winglike masses on the sides of the central throne. Badly drawn as are most of the figures, crude as is the compositional construction, there is a certain dignity of conception, a careful accentuation of type, and an attempt at individual character, without, too, the forced action and sharp contrasts of colour, so' characteristic of the early Venetian school. Though by no means one of the best ex- amples of the two Muranese, it unmistakably shows how these two workers can be called the founders of a new style. Another of the Vivarini has been classed with these as also one of the real founders of the school of Murano. It is now pretty well demonstrated that Andrea da Murano was one of the latest mem- 4° TTbe Brt of tbe IDentce BcaDemp bers as well as one of the feeblest. He was, how- ever, a follower, so far as he was able, of the Muranese style. The earliest work positively known to be his is the one in this room which once was in the Sacristy of San Pietro Martire at Murano. It was broken up at some later date, and no trace has been dis- covered of the lunette which held the Virgin of Mercy. The central panel represents St. Roch and St. Vincent attended by a kneeling patroness and another small-sized figure. This part of the altar- piece was for long in the Magazine of the Brera at Milan. The sides show St. Sebastian and St. Peter Martyr, a male worshipper placed with each. They are on wood, painted in tempera, on a gold ground. In the centre, St. Vincent holds his hand in bene- diction over a nude woman. There is a distinct trace of Mantegna’s influence in all these figures, particularly in the heads. The draperies are long, straight, and angular, the flesh-tone is olive, the faces disagreeable in expression. The Virgin Adoring the Child, in this room, may or may not be by Quirizio 1 da Murano, certain at- tributes suggesting rather the work of Bartolommeo. The Child and the blue mantle of the Mother are both modern restorations. The baby Jesus lies on a white cushion on a parapet. The inscription on this parapet of “ uritus, Murano,” may also be a IRoom A* — ©ala Dei /SDaestrt primitive 41 modern restoration, or a modern forgery. The figures are rather heavier than those usually as- signed to Quirizio. In the same room is an Ecce Homo' credited to him. It is on wood, and is less injured than the other. It, too, has much ip common with the style of Bartolommeo. Quirizio, or Quiricius, is supposed to have been a pupil of Antonio of Murano, though there have been many and varying conjectures made regarding him and his work by the critics. The probability is that he did little alone, but was one of the as- sistants in the Vivarini workshop. His use of tem- pera is like that of the school of Murano, being flat, light, and with little or no shade. His type of head is regular and well-shaped, fingers and neck long, waist very slender. There is little to admire in the huge altar-piece by Lambertini. It is divided into fifteen parts, and has three lengthwise divisions. In the centre are the Madonna and Child and two angels between two panels of Mary Magfdalen on the right, and St. Lucy and St. Helen at the left. Above are the Calvary and the four Evangelists. The predella contains scenes from the life of St. Helen. This is the best part of the work, showing some study of nature and some slight imagination. The draperies are crudely drawn, the figures even more so. The 42 Ube Hrt ot tbe tDentce Bcabems faces are apparently modelled on the same type, the mouths, particularly, being all alike. Very little is known of Michele di Matteo Lam- bertini, except that he was a Bolognese painter, working as early as 1440, that being the date of his twelve articles of the Apostles’ Creed in the Church of San Giovanni at Siena. His style is largely influenced by Byzantine traditions. CHAPTER III. ROOM XVII. The two panels in Room 17, one of the Virgin, and the other the Angel of the Annunciation, have been ascribed to Giovanni and Antonio Vivarini, and also to Luigi Vivarini. Morelli doubts if they belong to any Vivarini, claiming them to be more likely the work of Dario of Treviso. Berenson, also, does not give them to either Luigi or Bar- tolommeo. The new catalogue credits them to Parentino. They are, at any rate, in the style of the Vivarini, though with certain attributes which seem to place them perhaps as belonging to a painter somewhat later than the first of that school. The Virgin is kneeling on a tesselated floor of a room with an arch through whose opening a bit of sky and landscape can be seen. She is facing the left, her hands, not very successfully drawn, crossed on her breast. Both this and the other panel have been hurt by retouching. The angel kneels in the same room, or loggia, facing the Vir- gin, bearing a tall branch of white lilies in his left 43 44 Uhc Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabemp hand. His right is raised in blessing. He is clothed in white, with red cuffs, and his wings, cut half off by the line of picture, are many col- oured. The straight, long, delicately treated folds of his robe suggest Luigi’s handling, rather than the more angular brush of the two earlier Vivarini. After Antonio and Giovanni dissolved partner- ship, Antonio joined with his younger brother Bar- tolommeo, a man of distinctly more talent than he himself possessed. For most of his life, however, Bartolommeo worked alone. He is a worthy pred- ecessor of Alvise or Luigi, showing in the free- dom of his handling, and in the character and dignity of his figures, an advance in art till then unknown in Venice. It was soon, nevertheless, to be far excelled by the Bellini brothers. Bartolommeo had more originality than Antonio, and some of his works have a sternness and impressiveness that, as Kugler notes, are scarcely excelled by Mantegna, though he is led at times to a certain grotesque exaggeration that nullifies the austere impressive- ness otherwise felt. His colour was deeper and more brilliant than Antonio’s, but he had not al- together ceased employing the raised gold stucco work on embroideries and architectural accessories and he often used gold for entire backgrounds. So far as is known, he always painted in tempera, but he got effects with it only comparable to oil. He IRocm flDHIT* 45 was somewhat under the influence of the school of Squarcione, chiefly shown, as critics have noted, by the bits of classic details and by the flower and fruit wreaths and festoons over his backgrounds. The ancona by him, in Room 17, of the Madonna with Four Saints, is in the shape usual with the early school, a picture made up of a number of panels separated by highly wrought Gothic fram- ing. These Gothic frames are themselves very beautiful, their borders and columns and arches making a decorative ensemble that hardly needs the paintings within to add to its charm:. Indeed, the pictures have been so often repainted, restored, almost remade, that the spectator is apt to feel that it is the frame rather than the enclosed scenes that adequately represent the period of which the work is supposed to be an example. This one by Bartolommeo 1 is no exception to the general rule. It is divided into five compartments, and the exquisite workmanship of the surrounding frame is worth careful study. In the central divi- sion, on a gold background, are the Mother and Child. Mary is seated on a low throne, over the back of which is hung a red drapery. She is dressed in a rose-toned robe, patterned in gold, a blue mantle, lined with green, coming down from the top of her head over her shoulders on to her knees. With her hands folded in adoration, she 46 Ube Btt of tbe Venice Bcabem# is gazing down at the Child lying on a cushion asleep on her lap. The gravity, almost the dolo- rousness, of her expression is intensified in the faces of the four saints who fill the compartments on each side of this central panel. At the left are St. John and St. Andrew, at the right, St. Dominick and St. Peter. John is in his shirt of skins, with a red- dish overmantle, and holds his reed cross in his left hand. Against St. Andrew leans his cross of martyrdom. St. Dominick bears a slender, grace- ful stalk of lilies, and St. Peter the keys of his office. All these figures have a certain impressive dignity, and the devout spirit that portrayed them is plainly evident. In construction, they are at least better than most examples of Venetian art of that time. In expression, they are lugubrious in the extreme, anguish being the dominating note of their thin, drawn faces. St. Barbara, by the same artist, is painted stand- ing at the portal of a church or dwelling, holding in her hands the model of her tower. Her long, full robe is green, the background golden. She stands in full face, her head bent slightly toward her right shoulder, her eyes looking still farther to her right. The drooping, arched brows, heavy chin, and thick neck, are all characteristic of Bar- tolommeo-. And the extreme length of her body ST. BARBARA By Bartolommeo Vivarini IRoom fMIL 47 is a malformation which even Alvise did not wholly overcome. This picture, with the Mary Magdalen in the same room, once made a pendant for an altar-piece belonging to the Christ Chapel in San Geminiano. They are in the last manner of Bartolommeo, and the movement is comparatively easy and natural. The Scenes from the Life of Jesus, an ancona of many compartments, is not supposed, now, to be the work of Bartolommeo. It is, nevertheless, largely in his style. The central panel holds the Nativity, the Child lying on a green cushion on the ground, the Mother, in a red robe and green mantle, kneeling at the right, Joseph, at the left, asleep. Above this central scene, in a lunette, is the Pieta, with Jesus between two angels. At the left and right of the Nativity are a number of saints, — Peter, holding his keys, John the Baptist with a lamb, and a reed cross in his hands, Andrew 1 reading, Francis with the stigmata, Paul resting on his sword, Jerome bearing the model of his church, Anthony holding a lily, Martin with his sword. The predella has thirteen compartments, Jesus in the middle one, the apostles on either side. This whole ancona, if not by Bartolommeo, is supposed to have been painted in his studio, and is rough, uneven, and crude compared to his best work. 48 Ghe Brt of tbe Venice Hcafcems There are several works by Alvise Vivarini in Room 17, of which the most famous is the altar- piece, the Madonna Enthroned with Six Saints. Luigi, or Alvise Vivarini, was born, it is be- lieved, sometime after 1444. Most writers on the art Venetian claim that he was strong'ly influenced by Giovanni Bellini, and that it is to him. he owes most of his eminence. Mr. Bernhard Berenson, than whom, probably, no one has made a more care- ful study of Alvise, fails to see in the Muranese any more Bellinesque traits than would come, per- force, in the work of a man living and working at the same time and in the same town. He, Beren- son, sees instead the influence of Antonio and Bar- tolommeo' Vivarini, and also, strongly, that of Antonello' da Messina. What else is there, he says, is due to Alvise’ s own genius of development. Even in the altar-piece in the Redentore, which for so long was claimed to be by Bellini, Berenson finds scarcely any real likeness to Bellini. All critics practically agree that, in two> things at least, Vivarini differs greatly from Gianbellini. He never attains that command over his medium, oil, which the other used so easily. Nor does he ever reach anything like the knowledge of human anatomy possessed by this greatest fifteenth-century Venetian. To the very last, Vivarini’s figures are unduly tall, lanky, and ill-proportioned. The unexplained length in his IRoom PHI 49 figures, from chest to knee, is one of the noticeable characteristics of almost all of them. Berenson also claims that he is much more of a psychologist than Bellini ever was. He expresses more truly a cer- tain moment of thought, of arrested motion, of in- tense concentration, — this being one of the attri- butes which Lotto, his supposed pupil, derived from him. The Madonna and Child here is next to his ear- liest dated work, but it already shows the great progress he had made over his Muranese contem- poraries. Here are no longer the old style of divi- sions, with the Madonna and Babe in the central space, and the saints, in their Gothic-framed niches, on each side, painted on the gold background. Vivarini has not only made a single grouping of the Madonna, with the three saints on each side, but he has actually succeeded in making it all a composite whole, each figure to a greater or less extent dependent upon the others, all bearing a dis- tinct relation to the central group. More than that, he has expressed a real condition of mind. The Madonna is seated on a high-backed throne, dressed in a rose-coloured gown, with a brown mantle brocaded with gold and a white head-dress. Standing on her left knee is the baby Christ, the lower part of his body in profile, his chest, shoul- ders, and head turned nearer full face, as he lifts 5® Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabents his hand in blessing. Mary extends her right hand, palm upward, as if she were discoursing to 1 those about her or explaining the nature of the holy Child. It is this gesture which is the connecting link between her and the saints. For the whole six are looking, listening, leaning forward, their own hands duplicating her gesture, as if they were following her every movement. Close against the throne, therefore slightly back of the other four, are St. Anna on the left, and St. Joachim on the right. Anna, dressed in blue, has her hands folded prayerwise, a strained, nervous look on her thin face. Joachim is lifting his hat and holding a dove in the other hand, his gray- bearded, intent face gazing eagerly at the Child. Next him is St. Francis in monk’s attire, his hands lifted, showing the nail-prints, his head bent, his eyes looking downward. Beside him comes St. Bernard, his shaven head with the sharp, fine features in strict profile. On the other side, St. Anthony of Padua is next Anna, a book in his left hand, a spray of lilies over his shoulder in his right, his face nearly in profile. Beside, but in front of him, is St. Louis of Toulouse. Back of the throne a green drapery is suspended, and over it, on each side, are the upper part of two arched windowls, giving a glimpse of sky and clouds. The Madonna’s face is wistful, but not heavy, MADONNA AND CHILD By Luigi (Alvise) Vivarini IRoom JOT IF* 5 1 questioning, not dolorous. It is not beautiful, but it has a sweet sobriety about it that makes one turn to it again and again. The length from her shoul- der to her thigh is, as usual with Vivarini, exces- sive, and the figures of the saints have this same peculiarity. But in construction they are all better than the nude baby with the tiny feet and hands, the queer twisted little body that shows such evi- dent and painful effort. There is a marked likeness to one another in the faces of the saints, yet each has decided, even emphatic character and person- ality. Their strained, intense expressions are, again, characteristic of the painter of Murano. The panel of St. Clare, in the same room, came from the suppressed Church of San Daniele. This is a portrait, evidently, of a nun of the time of Alvise, and, as portraiture, is a most remarkable work. It is the figure of a woman fast nearing old age. She is in the dress of some sisterhood, her robe violet, mantle black, ,and white veil. In three- quarters position she is turned toward the left, looking at the spectator, her right hand holding a crucifix, her left, a red book. Behind her is a green drapery. This long, lined, drawn face, with its thin mouth curving severely downwards, with its pene- trating, unexcusing eyes, its sharp, long nose, is not a charming face, nor does it suggest a lovable character. Severity, rigour of doctrine, are there. 52 Uhc Brt of tbe Denice Bcafcem^ No sin, one feels, would be lightly forgiven, little ones, perhaps, least of all. “ St. Clare,” says Mr. Berenson, “ is a powerfully conceived and ably ex- ecuted bust of a firmly believing, strenuously act- ing, old woman. Her face is one of the best studies of character that had, up to that time, been produced in Venice.” Cosimo Tura, the painter of a Madonna and Child in this room, was one of the founders of the Ferrarese school, a school that was late in develop- ing. Until the latter half of the fifteenth century, Ferrara had practically no native art. Cosimo, Morelli calls “ a hard, dry, and angular painter, but often very impressive.” He, as well as the other early Ferrarese, was influenced by the school founded by Squarcione in Padua in 1430, but it is considered probable that they also were partly indebted to Piero> della Francesco, who had worked in their city. M. Alexandre says of Cosimo, that “ it is impossible to find a painter more exaggerated, more mannered, more, to state it bluntly, more in- tolerable.” It is true that his angular, often con- torted forms, his hard, ugly colour, his forced ges- tures, and his strained, staring expressions, make his pictures far from being things of beauty. Yet he has unquestioned energy, and, if his colour is rough, it has strength of tone, and his contours are IRoom pifi 53 frequently characterized by extremely expressive curves. The picture by him here shows the Madonna in full face, holding on her knee the sleeping baby Jesus. Back of the group is a trellis covered with grape-vines. The background is blue, with a cir- cular gold decoration, which is half obscured. Above, in an anconetta, are two angels presenting a chalice cover. This is in its original frame, a frame that is, for pure beauty, far superior to the picture which it surrounds. The queer, ill-drawn baby, with the painfully attached hands, shoulders, and feet, the angular, disconnected head of the Madonna, with the abnormally high and wide forehead, recalling the Dutch type, are somewhat atoned for by the spirit of severe piety, if it may be so expressed, that envelops the whole picture. The man who painted it was in earnest, if ever a painter was. In this room is the only picture owned by the Academy by Andrea Mantegna, St. George and the Dragon. It was painted in Mantegna’s mid-career, when he was in the plenitude of his powers. The youthful hero is standing in a tall, narrow panel, whose painted framework makes it appear as if he were on the threshold of a doorway or porch. Beyond the side framing, seeming to project out of the picture, comes his left hand, holding his broken 54 TEbe Brt of tbe Dentce Bcabem# spear, and in the lower right-hand corner is the dragon’s snout. Above the saint’s head is a garland of fruit and flowers hung between the framing pillars. Behind is the winding, curving roadway, leading from a low-lying river up to a castled hill, with towers and walls breaking* against the cloud- streaked sky. The curving line of this roadway in the yellowish landscape nearly repeats the outline of the monster at the conqueror’s feet; for, though the beast is now lying in a heap half across the threshold, or framing, and half into the field be- hind, it still shows in its long, sinuous neck, its big bat-shaped wings, its doubled-up body, possibilities of twisting, tortuous length. He is a very pulpy, evil-looking beast, his fanged tongue and wicked, stretched mouth, with its double row of stiletto-like teeth, as well as the power felt in the ribbed, ser- rated wings, all showing his formidable nature as an enemy. Yet, perhaps, in the prone body, there is a hint of sluggishness, of actual inertia, behind all the superficial ferocity, suggesting that no determined warrior could have found him so* en- tirely dangerous an opponent. That is what, at least, the young hero seems to convey in his person. He stands on his right leg, his body swung lightly in that direction, resting slightly on his huge, broken spear, that reaches almost up to his shoulder. His left hand is on his left hip, just above his sword, ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON By Andrea Mantegna mom fOTIL 55 which he evidently has not had to> use. Above his head shines his halo, but otherwise, in this thor- oughly mailed figure, there is no hint of the saint- hood afterward bestowed upon him. In accoutre- ment he is perfect; nothing in the requirements of the day, apparently, is lacking to make him invin- cible. With the exception of the short red cloak hanging from his shoulders, and only seen slightly beneath his arms, there is nothing softer or more pregnable than the woven shirt of mail coming from beneath his plate armour, and falling half-way to his knees. The grace, the poise, the swing of the figure, even for Mantegna in the height of his powers, are wonderfully expressed. There are a rhythm, a spring, and a balance, as well as strength, in his slight, slender, yet firm figure that quite explain the ease with which the terrible dragon was van- quished by the young knight. Full of intense life as the figure is, Mantegna achieved a still more remarkable triumph in the head and face of the youth. The head is beautifully balanced and held proudly, the eyes are large and calmly regardful, the mouth sensitive and rather sad. But about the whole face there is something that suggests a psychologic moment very rare in early Renaissance art. Almost one is tempted to read into it the modern question. Almost one feels that the thoughts 56 Ube Hrt ot tbe Dentce Bcabems of the triumphant youth are very far from triumph. He has accomplished the deed so easily! There is not so much as a disarranged curl to show that the struggle cost him half an effort. Only the broken spear is evidence that force must have been ex- pended. And one wonders if he regrets that the task was so simple, or if he wonders whether it was worth while ! If, perhaps, even dragons haven’t a right in the world and a use ! Or is it simply the saint’s sorrow that so many have failed where he found it so easy? Andrea di Ser Biagio, known to-day as Man- tegna, was born in 1431, probably in or near Padua, though some writers have thought that he was a Vicentine. As early as 1441 he was apparently regularly adopted by Francesco Squarcione, at that time considered the best teacher in Northern Italy. He had under his instruction, it is said, as many as 137 pupils. His chief excellence seems to have been not so much in his own ability as painter, for he had little real technical or actual experience in the art, but in his insistence upon the study of the antique. He had a large collection of antiques and casts of classic sculpture which he had gathered in the course of years, and these were all used for his pupils to work from. Perhaps Mantegna’s works always showed the influence of Squarcione. But it was Donatello to IRoom iWf* 57 whom he owed most. And as M. Muntz happily observes, it was Mantegna, a painter, who was the principal pupil of the great sculptor. Mantegna was born with little sense of colour, and he never becomes a great, or even a good, colourist. There is in the best of his works a lack of the finer har- mony, balance, and counterbalance of colour masses that come almost instinctively to the born painter. What advance his later works show over his earlier in this respect is principally due to Bellini. After and even before Mantegna married Niccolosia, the sister of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, his sense of the value of colour shows a decided gain. From Bellini, too, he acquired something of grace, of repose, and of charm. The recent editors of Vasari say of Mantegna in discriminating phrase : “ Mantegna’s was a dual artistic personality; pushed a little further in one direction, his Judith of the Uffizi might form part of a Greek vase painting;, pushed a little further in the opposite direction, his Gonzaghe nobles of the Mantuan Castello would become caricatures. Man- tegna’s is essentially a virile genius; he does not charm by suggestiveness, nor please by morbidezza; he lacks facile grace and feeling for facial beauty; he is often cold, sometimes even harsh and crude. ... As Angelico was the Saint, and Leonardo the Magician, Mantegna was the Ancient Roman of 5 8 Ufoe Brt of tbe Dentce Hcafcems Art. His were the Roman virtues, — sobriety, dig- nity, self-restraint, discipline, and a certain master- liness as indescribable as it is impressive — and to those who appreciate austere beauty and the pure harmonies of exquisite lines Mantegna’s art will always appeal.” From his Eremitani decorations in Padua, down the line of his wall paintings in the Ducal Palace at Mantua, his Madonnas of St. Zeno and the Louvre, and his Triumph of Caesar at Hampton Court, it is possible to* get a fairly complete understanding of the great master who combined power with grace, full sweep of brush with an almost miniature- like execution, a marvellous decorative sense along with great qualities as a portrayer of mood and pas- sion, a draughtsmanship unerring, a rhythm and swing as musical as it is insistent. According to the new catalogue the two panels in this room which were formerly ascribed to An- tonello da Messina are only copies of his works. Berenson, however, credits him with the Ecce Homo, and other critics give him as well the Annun- ciation. In neither is Antonello at his best, though both show' certain well-known characteristics of the South Italian. Jesus at the Column is less than a half-length figure, cut by the line of picture just below his breast. Behind him, and coming above his head, ffioom £M1L 59 is seen part of the cross. His head is thrown back and up, in three-quarters position, facing toward his left, while his shoulders are almost in full face. A crown of thorns is on his head, and falling below it on to his shoulders are long, tight curls. The thin, pointed beard and light moustache help to emphasize the agony of the open mouth with its drooping lines. Hrops of blood are fall- ing from his forehead on to his face, neck, and chest. In spite of the torture the face does not express any abject terror. It shows, rather, both restraint and dignity under the extreme of suffering. The brushwork is coarse and heavy, and there is some reason for thinking that critics may be right in regarding the signature, “ Antonellus Mesanius me Pinxitas,” a modern forgery. The Annunciation is even less worthy of Anto- nello’s fame. Mary is a half-length figure, standing at a reading-desk on which is an open missal. She is in almost full face, so completely covered with the heavy wooden drapery over her that nothing but her face and hands can be discerned. Even her face is half-obscured, for the head-veil comes far down nearly to the eyes. The hands are curiously fore- shortened, and throughout the entire figure there is evident a strong but not greatly successful at- tempt at correct anatomical construction. Her eyes are large and wide open, her mouth has full but 6o TTbe Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabemp carefully drawn lips, her nose is Grecian in its straight lines. Her expression is sweet if some- what lethargic. According to the catalogue the original of this picture is in Munich. From Vasari’s time down there have been ex- tremely conflicting opinions in regard to Antonello’ s life and works. Vasari’s account of him is one mass of contradictory statements. The date of his birth does not correspond at all with his age as he gives it at the painter’s death, and the incidents of his life are proved to be largely unfounded on fact. The great claim, which up to a comparatively few years ago was universally believed, that Antonello learned the art of oil-painting directly from Jan Van Eyck, that for that purpose he made a trip to Flanders and that to him was due its intro- duction into 1 Italy, is now pretty generally regarded as mostly without foundation. The southern towns of Italy, Naples, Palermo, Messina, had no school of painting of their own, but they had a regular commerce with the northern countries, and many Flemish works of art were brought to their ports. Later on, these southern cities, with the desire for self-aggrandizement strong within them, not infrequently claimed these very works as the product of native artists. How- ever, this is neither here nor there. It is only cer- tain that Antonello, as well as any other South IRoom flDff. 61 Italian, must have had a chance to see and study the Flemish method of oil-painting without making the trip to Flemish shores. That he himself did introduce the method to Venice, when, about 1473, he went there to live, is, however, abundantly testified to. It was unquestionably he to whom Bellini owed his adoption of the medium. For some years after Antonello’ s arrival in Ven- ice, it seems evident that he was the most famous portrait-painter in the city. It is undoubtedly largely to his use of oil that much of his vogue while living and his fame after death are due. What he owed to the Bellini and what they owed to him, how far he was influenced by Alvise Vi- varini or how much the latter copied him, all these are points that critics have greatly disagreed about. Morelli and most of the later writers affirm that Antonello owed practically everything to the Venetians, showing that his early works, before he reached the northern city, are SO' immature, so in- experienced, that they prove his lack of knowledge before his arrival. Berenson maintains that, though Giovanni Bellini undoubtedly had a great deal of influence over the young southerner, it is not alone this painter whom Antonello took as model, but that Alvise Vivarini was also greatly responsible for his development. Morelli thinks that Carpaccio comes next to Bellini in helping to form the south- 62 TLhc Hrt of tbe IDentce Bcafcems erner, but Berenson can see none of this influence. In any case, Antonello’s art became very much finer, more noteworthy in every way in Venice. He was an excellent colourist, a keen delineator of character, a sharp observer of nature, — all char- acteristics helping to make him the admirable por- trait-painter he is credited with being. Some of the heads of Antonello are not unworthy to rank with the chief gems in all portraiture. He also painted religious scenes, in which his realism, his power of depicting emotion, and his dramatic sense at times make these Crucifixions and Pietas posi- tively repulsive. After living in Venice, for awhile showing more capability, more talent than ever Gianbellini showed, he gradually lost hold, and Bellini went far ahead of him. Some of Antonello’s later works have a coarseness of execution, a roughness of sur- face, and a violence of gesture, movement, and expression that indicate his final retrogression. Four pictures have been credited to Boccaccio Boccaccino here, but the new catalogue claims that only one of them is unquestionably his. This, the Marriage of St. Catherine, is considered one of the finest works he ever achieved. It is a charming example of a Santa Conversazione , a style of pic- ture which, begun by Gianbellini, was continued with such success by Palma Vecchio and Titian. MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE By Boccaccio Boccaccino I IRoom fMIL 63 Slightly at the left, in the midst of a varied land- scape of rolling field, low mountains, a lake, and clumps of trees, sits Mary, with the Child on her left knee. She is turned three-quarters to the right, dressed in a rose-coloured robe, blue mantle edged with delicate golden emibrpidery, and a white veil with golden threads. Her face is bent to the baby, who is looking up at her with an eager, questioning expression, but her eyes are not regarding him. Instead, half-drooped, they seem to be searching for something- far beyond their sight. This look, joined to the slight downward curve of her lips, gives a pensive, gently melancholic expression lo her round, softly modelled face, that otherwise is like a baby’s in its fresh colour and delicate planes. The Child is a plump, rosy little figure, with an entrancing and real baby-spring to his chubby little frame. While questioning his mother with his eyes, he is leaning forward toward St. Catherine, who kneels by the Madonna’s side in profile holding out a ring. St. Rose is standing in full face, at the right of Mary. St. Peter kneels still farther at the right, holding out the keys, and yet farther over is John the Baptist on one knee, gazing with ador- ing eyes at the holy group. St. Catherine is very richly dressed, a gold and red brocade, with a gray mantle lined with yellow sweeping down her shoul- ders and falling in heavy folds on the ground beside 64 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Hcafcems her. Her head-dress is white, lightly striped, and, as she kneels, one hand on her wheel, the other stretched forward for the ring, she makes a very striking, and not unbeautiful, figure. Her strongly marked profile is full of deep earnestness, and an intensity of longing is in her eye and wistful mouth. St. Rose, in her flowered white gown, red mantle, and gauzy veil, is more regular in feature, with large, wide-open gray eyes, but with a more phlegmatic expression. Her left hand, holding up her mantle, is exquisitely drawn and modelled. St. Peter is somewhat conventionally portrayed with his bald head, short gray beard, and a rugged pro- file that is full of devotion. Even more marked is the adoration expressed in John’s emaciated face and figure. His rough, bearded face, with its shock of tumbled hair, is bent far forward on his thin shoulders, and his whole soul seems gazing out from his deep, dark eyes. One hand is pressed against his bosom as if to still the beating of his heart. In the distance, back of Mary, is shown the flight into Egypt, and back of John are three cavaliers on horseback. As a whole, the picture is full of clear, bright colour, of real piety, and of carefully studied if slightly heavy drapery. The overabundance of the robe about Peter is at least a fine study of drapery falling into heavy folds. IRoom flDfllL 65 The attribution to Boccaccino' of the Madonna and Child between Sts. Simon and Jerome is doubt- ful. The figures are all half-length. Simon, at the left, is in full face, with long beard, eyes that do> not exactly focus, a worn, watchful expression on his well-modelled face. Jerome, at the right, nearly in profile, is bald-headed, has a thick, white beard, and is gazing at the Child with a deeply troubled expression. Jesus, in Mary’s arms, has a swaddling band about him, and is a gay little specimen of babyhood, his curly head lifted, his bright eyes and turned-up nose making him look very real. The Madonna has regular features that are rather lack- ing in expression. The picture, called by Professor Pietro 1 Paoletti di Oswaldo, in the official catalogue, St. John be- tween Two Apostles, has always gone by the name of Christ and the Doctors. The two doctors, or apostles, are both in profile, the older one, on the right, in a yellow robe, the younger, who might be St. John himself, in red and blue. The young boy in the centre is in full face, dressed in a violet robe. The other two* partially cover him so that only a bit of his chest, neck, and head show. He has large eyes and tightly curling hair. The colouring of the picture is lovely. The heads have been re- painted, but the draperies probably not. Whether by Boccaccino or not, it is a picture of lovely tones. 66 Uhc Brt of the IDentce Bcabemp Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples has been credited to Perugino. Peter is at the left, seated before a basin, in front of which Jesus kneels. The disciple’s protesting face and gesture are well indicated, as is also the quiet insistence of the Mas- ter. The figures are half the size of life. The com- position is awkward, particularly in its row of disciples who stand back of Jesus and Peter, their heads on a straight line. There is considerable archaism displayed in the attitudes, but the scene is not without strong touches of realism. The heads, especially, are very splendidly modelled, while the draperies are rather too full of insig- nificant little folds. Boccaccino was born in Cremona somewhere about 1460. M. Muntz says of him that his works are a compromise between the art Venetian and the art Ferrarese, and continues by remarking that he was at times both vigorous and tender, while at others his forms were dry and archaic, his attitudes clumsy. Lanzi claims that he was the best modern among the ancients and the best ancient among the moderns. According to Morelli, he got that part of his art most worth while from Alvise Vivarini, from the Bellini, and from Giorgione. His hardness of line and drapery and a certain rude power which he occasionally shows were probably derived from men who had returned to Ferrara from Mantua, IRoom flDITIL 6 7 where they had been influenced by Mantegna. His series of frescoes in the cathedral in Cremona are to-day still considered his most satisfactory achieve- ment. At one time he went to Rome and executed an altar-piece for Santa Maria Transpontina which was wholly unsuccessful. The chief thing that is recalled about his visit there is the way he abused and ridiculed Michelangelo’s works. This he did so publicly that the Romans in turn made life too wretched for a long stay, and he shortly returned to Cremona. His works have been assigned to Perugino, to the Lombard school, and even to Leonardo da Vinci himself. In his best achieve- ments he has depth and richness of colour, a quick grace of movement, joined, at times, to an awk- wardness of pose, interesting, often charming, types for his Madonnas and female saints, and a rugged earnestness in his male characters. There is not infrequently poetic feeling in his landscapes, in conjunction with a perspective not always im- peccable. He had a great delight in clothing his women in heavy velvet robes of light, gay colours, and ornamenting them with bands of carefully wrought embroidery in gold and colours. There are several pictures in this room by Gio- vanni Battista Cima, known in art as Cima da Conegliano, from his birthplace in FriuM. The date of his birth is not definitely decided upon, though 68 ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabemi? 1460 is probably nearly if not the exact year. His death is usually given as having occurred in 1517. Thus born a Friulian, he seems to have settled in Venice very early in life, and has been generally regarded as a pupil of Gianbellini. Alvise Vivarini has also been called his teacher, and the latter’s in- fluence is strongly in evidence in many of Cima’s pictures. Berenson calls attention to the similarity between Cima’s Pieta and Vivarini’s St. Sebastian, both here in the Academy. Crowe and Cavalcaselle say of him that “ he is very masterly in producing strong effect by light and shade.” In most of his pictures he introduces landscape of Friulian char- acter, with its hills and valleys and uneven surfaces, and, though he does not equal Bellini as landscape- painter, he has an instinctive feeling for outdoor life and the value of natural surroundings in his compositions. The two 1 critics above quoted con- tinue, “ Compared with other painters of the close of the fifteenth century, Cima takes a place by Giovanni Bellini’s side, similar .to that held by Fran- cia in respect to Perugino. . . . Cima has not the largeness or breadth of shape in figures, nor the fibre of the colourist, which belong to Bellini. . . . What he lacks in grandeur is compensated by staid and dignified simplicity. He has in his limited walk all that is required to make him a worthy fRoom | MIL 69 rival of the best Venetian artists before the rise of the sixteenth century.” Altogether, Cima exercises a fascination that can be traced partly to his unceasing care and attention to detail, partly to the cleanness as well as brilliance of his palette, partly to the skilful employment of contrasts of light and shade, but mostly to his sincerity and unassumingness. Cima never poses. He is as simple and direct as Botticelli was suggest- ive and involved. The subtleties were not for him. The open light of midday held a charm for him that no mysterious twilight could ever possess. And yet, garishness is the last sin he could be accused of. It is, after all, something of the naivete of the believer of the mediaeval years, that frame of mind farthest removed from either the modern scientific skeptic or the nineteenth-century psycho-religionist that is Cirna’s dominating trait. He comes to us like a simple strain of old country music, a folk- song, before modern harmonizers or composers have resolved it into< its original motifs , or used it for the groundwork of a great symphony. One of his most beautiful canvases is Tobias with the Angel, St. James, and St. Nicholas, now in this room. Originally it was a painting on wood, but in 1889 it was transferred to canvas, suffering greatly from the operation. It belonged to the sup- pressed church of the Misericordia. According to 70 Ube Brt of tbe Venice Bcabemp Crowe and Cavalcaselle it was painted at about the same time as the Incredulity of Thomas, in the last part of the fifteenth century. These critics find in it the same coldness of execution along with the silvery lighting of that picture. Morelli, while praising it as one of Cima’s most beautiful creations, uses it as proof that the Friulian master never abandoned the style of the quattrocentists. And indeed, in this, as in all of Cima’s works, there is little or none of that envelope of atmosphere which Bellini expressed so clearly in his later work. But in no picture can there be found more simple ear- nestness and unstudied piety than in this representa- tion of the legend of Tobias. As a composition, it is less satisfactory, for, though the figures are well-balanced, and the spotting good, there is no real connection between the group made by the angel and Tobias with either of the saints. The scene depicts a rocky, mountainous region, with castle-crowned hills in the background. In the centre, stepping forward on a rocky ledge, come Tobias and his angel guardian. The little fellow holds the fish in his right hand, while his left is grasping the sleeve of the angel’s underrobe. In his red boots, short blue tunic with its red border that ends some way above his bare knees and opens at his throat and waist to show the white shirt beneath, Tobias is a quaint little figure, full of a IRoom flDlf, 71 grace as childlike as it is appealing. His curly head is turned up to the angel, and he seems to be listening intently to the directions of the heavenly visitant. The latter, whose red mantle falls over one shoulder of his white tunic, is looking down with tender seriousness at his young charge while he guides him on his way. Though he has a stur- diness and an almost peasantlike reality, far re- moved from the ethereal spirituality of a Fra An- gelico angel, there is a seriousness of mien, a simple nobility of bearing, and a certain unconscious sepa- ration from his surroundings that hardly need the addition of the wings from his shoulders to show his overearthly origin. At the left of these two stands St. James reading, his green tunic and yellow mantle making a contrast to the red and gold bro- caded dalmatic of Nicholas of Bari, who* stands facing three-quarters to the left, the three purses in his right hand, his air one of quiet unconcern, with no apparent connection with the subject of the picture. The Pieta is an early work, and shows, as Mr. Berenson has already been quoted as saying, his strong affinity with Vivarini. In the centre, the dead Christ, still crowned with thorns, is held upon a stone base by Nicodemus, who is dressed in a yellow mantle. St. John, in yellow underrobe and red mantle, is ^t the right, the Virgin in gray and 7’ 2 Ube Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabent^ blue, with white head-dress, at the left, each holding an arm of the dead Son and Master. At each side is one of the Marys, she at the left old, her right hand on the Mother’s shoulder. The other, prob- ably the Magdalen, younger, in a rose-toned robe and green mantle, has her hands joined in prayer. Here again is felt the severe but real piety of Cima, a piety that, if circumscribed and strictly within the laws of the Church, is equally never forced or hollow. The angular draperies and meagreness of forms help, raher than destroy, this feeling. The Incredulity of St. Thomas, which Cima painted for the School of the Masons at Venice, is in bad condition, the picture split, and the paint scaling off. In the centre of an open-arched por- tico', with coloured marble trimmings, stands Jesus, his white mantle leaving his chest and right shoulder bare. He is holding Thomas’s hand, and guiding it to the wound in his side. The excited, ques- tioning attitude of the skeptic Thomas, the anxiety to believe that struggles with his intellectual doubt, are admirably expressed in this figure. At the right, against a pillar, stands St. Nicholas, book and crozier in hand, his gorgeous cope embroidered and figured with beautifully wrought scenes on the orphreys. He is gazing at his two companions calmly and benevolently, this regard being the only MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH STS. DIONYSIUS AND LIBERALE By Cima da Conegliano IRoom fOTf* 73 compositional link connecting him with the scene. A landscape background, with low hills, is seen through the portico*. The heads of these figures are all admirably con- ceived, and over all is the deep, unaffected reverence that is characteristic of Cima, as indeed, of most Venetians of his time. There is equally to* be felt, nevertheless, the certain hardness and angularity and detachment of figure from its atmospheric sur- roundings, so* very general with Cima. The same subject, wiith more figures, is in the National Gal- lery. In the Madonna Enthroned with Sts. Dionysius and Liberale, the Madonna and Child are in almost the identical positions of the altar-piece in Room n, the chief difference being that the baby there rests on his left leg, and in the larger work, on his right. On a marble pedestal, in front of a drapery against a flat marble wall, the Madonna is sitting in nearly full face, holding the baby upright on her left knee. He has turned his head over his left shoulder, look- ing down at St. Liberale, who stands beside the throne in front of an arched opening showing the landscape distance. On the other side is Dionysius, Bishop of S. Vittore, in front of a similar opening, his face in profile. This architectural background of the Madonna’s throne is exquisitely ornamented on pilaster and framing. In a lunette above her 74 Ube Brt of tbe Venice Bcabemp head is Jesus between Peter and Paul. The colour of the whole picture is wonderfully rich and glow- ing, and the types are softer and less rigid than usual with Cima. Crowe and Cavalcaselle attribute the Madonna Enthroned between Sts. John the Baptist and Paul to Girolamo da Udine. Berenson and others, how- ever, give it to Cima. The Madonna sits in full face, clad in a red robe, blue mantle and white linen head-veil with embroidered border. The Child stands upright on her right knee, her right hand supporting him. His curly head is bent far to the right and he is gazing at the Baptist, who stands at the left of the picture. At the right, read- ing, is St. Paul. Behind the Mother and Child is a brown drapery with few folds, and in the distance a mountainous landscape, holding a castle on a rocky height. This, according to Mr. Berenson, has character- istics of Alvise Vivarini, of Montagna, and of Bar- bari. It is easy also to see the influence of Bellini. The type of Madonna is not unlike Bellini’s, though her features are rather more pinched and there is not the deep feeling in her face that can be found in the best Bellini Madonnas. The Child is a beau- tiful creation, — rounded, firm little body, full of life and spirit, gay, yet tenderly regardful in ex- pression. St. John is a gaunt figure, his dishevelled IRoont |WIL 75 head of .curls, his sunken cheeks, and bony chest re- calling Vivarini’s type. Paul is a well-fed, bald- headed man, face much wrinkled, hands delicate and badly constructed, not indicating much bony formation. The Child and St. John are both ex- cellent achievements. Still another by Cima is the St. Christopher. This was the central panel of a large altar-piece in seven panels painted for the Scuola dei Mercanti. It has an arched top, and is a narrow, upright panel. Through a stream, which is only half-way up to his knees, wades the gigantic figure of Christopher, leaning on a staff made of a whole date-tree. On his shoulder is the infant Christ, in green robe, holding a globe surmounted by a cross. Christopher is clad in a short blue tunic, which comes just to his hips, bound with a yellow sash, a short cloak of red flying about his shoulders. Considerable movement is shown in all these draperies, as if the wind were tossing them about. His bearded face, surrounded with the thick, long curls that fall to his shoulder, is lifted toward the baby, his deep adoration showing in his big eyes. The careful modelling of face, legs, and arms, does not entirely prevent a feeling of archaism in the whole picture. Two pictures by Basaiti, the Dead Christ and the panel of the two saints, Anthony and James, are 76 Ube Brt of tbe Dentce Bcabem^ mediocre, even poor examples of his work. The first shows the dead body of Jesus stretched out on a board on top of a sepulchre. He is beardless and young, nude, save for a bit of drapery about his loins, and his face has a peaceful, calm dignity, un- marred by any expression of suffering. He is lying with his hands clasped on his abdomen, his face bent sidewise, bringing it into three-quarters posi- tion. There is a cruel gash in one side and the nail-marks gleam from the hands and feet, but the body is far less emaciated than the early artists were wont to- depict it. Two smiling little putti are at his head and feet, regarding him with a tender cheerfulness strangely at variance with the nature of the scene. A landscape of rugged, rocky slope stretches out back of the group. The two saints are standing in a Gothic-shaped niche, Anthony, with a long beard divided in the middle, holding a book in one hand, his bell at his feet, James with a book and staff. Of the two, Anthony’s head and face are much the better drawn and modelled. Marco' Basaiti was possibly a native of Friuli, but more likely he was born in Venice, somewhere near 1470. It is thought that at first he was an assistant of Alvise Vivarini, and, until after 1500, his style is distinctly Muranese. Gradually, under the influence of Bellini and Palma, he loses his IRooin fOTIC 77 hard outlines, his opacity, and acquires a stronger sense of the value of light and shade. Whereas, consequently, his earlier pictures, like these in the Academy, are hard, angular, and primitive in con- struction and handling, his latest ones are soft, brilliant, and with abrupt transitions from light to shade. He seems, chameleonlike, to have adopted the outer characteristics of the men with whom he came in contact, but underneath all can be discovered the original Basaiti, with what critics have called his “ emptiness and monotone.” At the same time he has a certain dignity and earnestness of expres- sion that place him above a mere imitator. Vicenzo di Biagio, better known as Catena, was a pupil of Bellini, and was born probably about 1477. He died in Venice in 1531. He has usually been credited with being merely an imitator, first of Bellini, and later of Giorgione, and, until Morelli directed attention to him, was not even given place as a second-rate artist. Vasari, however, had ac- corded him great praise as a portrait-painter, and Morelli claims that many of his works have been ascribed to Bellini, and also to Giorgione, so that he is not known at his true worth. According to Morelli, after he had become influenced by Gior- gione, he became a really splendid colourist. The three works by him here give little hint of his later powers. The two> saints, Augustine and 78 Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabems Jerome, have been so tremendously repainted that their original state can only be surmised. The Ma- donna and Child with John the Baptist and Jerome is an early work, showing the influence of Bellini, and probably, too, of Vivarini. The severity of Mary’s countenance is the most noticeable thing in the picture. Catena’s best works are in the National Gallery and in the Mater Domini in Venice. CHAPTER IV. ROOM XVIII. SALA DI GIOVANNI BELLINI With the exception of the one picture by his father, Room 18 is given up entirely to the works of Giovanni Bellini. If the Vivarini of Murano were the first of the Venetians to make any successful attempt to throw off the yoke of the Byzantine traditions, another school was to achieve a more complete and lasting freedom, a freedom which was to land it, almost with one bound, among the great schools of paint- ing of all time. Jacobo or Jacopo Bellini, whose Mother and Child is in this room, was the father of the founder of this greater school, if, indeed, he may not be called the founder himself. Like Antonio Vivarini, Jocobo was a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, following that master in his travels, and once, at least, getting into prison for belabouring some of Gentile’s enemies. Born somewhere near 1400, Jacobo was in Padua for a number of years, where, in his workshop, he had many assistants, among them being his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, as well as Mantegna, who later married his daughter 79 8o Ube Hrt of tbe Wenice Ecabems Niccolosia. What he really could accomplish, and how considerable an advance his art was over that of contemporary Venetian painters, is best indicated in his sketch-book now in the British Museum. In that, the studies for individual figures, the sketches for compositions, the drawings of statues, the bits of architecture, all show the artist’s attempt to go to nature for guidance, and show too that he not infrequently overcame the Greek tendencies and tra- ditions to a considerable extent. The few ex- tant paintings that are unquestionably his are all too much restored to demonstrate his ability as a painter. This is the case with the Madonna and Child here, which has been so thoroughly repainted that little of the original surface can be discerned. The Madonna, a half-length figure, her mantle sage green lined with dead leaf colour, holds her arms about the baby who is seated on a round cricket on a stone parapet before her. He is dressed in a crimson tunic, with a border made of Oriental char- acters in gold. In his left hand is an apple, and his right is raised in benediction. Making the bor- der of the halos about their heads are also 1 Orien- tal letters of gold. The Madonna’s face is a very long oval with half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes and eyebrows highly arched. Numberless cherubim painted on a black background are behind the two. MADONNA AND CHILD By Jacopo Bellini Sala M <3iopanni Bellini 81 The inscription, “ Opus Jacobi Bellini, Veneti,” is on the frame, not on the work itself, but the frame is probably of the same date as the picture. Only in the general lines of this painting can Bellini’s hand be discerned. According to Vasari, Giovanni Bellini was older than his brother Gentile. It is pretty definitely set- tled now that in reality he was a year or two younger, — the date of Gentile’s birth being usually placed at 1426, and Giovanni’s at 1427 or 1428. Gianbellini, as he is called in contemporary records, was the greatest Venetian master of the fifteenth century. More than that, he was the teacher of Giorgione and Titian, and in his later works can be found the source of the heights reached by the V enetian school in the sixteenth century. Like Gentile, his first teacher was his father, and like Gentile also, his earliest work was strongly Paduan in character. More than any other one thing which helped to direct his efforts can be counted the in- fluence of Mantegna. Each owes much to* the other, but, at least for all the earlier part of his life, Gio- vanni is more indebted to Mantegna than to any one else, and more than the Paduan is to him. No painter, perhaps, shows a more continuous and un- failing progress, throughout, too, so long a life, as Gianbellini. That it was a very slow progress, that only bit by bit, sometimes almost imperceptibly, did 82 Ube Hrt ot tbe \Dentce Hcabem^ he advance to the step beyond present achievement, is due possibly to a certain slowness of assimila- tion, not to any lack of inherent ability. For Bellini’s genius was not merely industry and per- severance. No labour, ever so hard or protracted, could alone produce the glorious masterpieces of Bellini’s middle and later life. His ripening was slow, but it was the ripening of perfect fruit, — and each stage of it had its own beauty, its own charm, and held within it the promise of the future perfec- tion. The man never seemed to be at the limit of his powers. Perhaps the greatest fascination of his greatest pictures is the sense they convey that there is no “ last word ” of their creator. Wonder- fully beautiful as they are, there is none of that finality about them that leads one to say, with a hint of disappointed satiety at the completeness, “ Here is as far as he can go. Never again can he exceed that result.” Rather, each work seems to hint of greater and more perfect possibilities, with- out in the least diminishing its own glories. And surely nothing in art is more inspiring than to remember how, an old man of eighty, with laurels heaped upon his brow, at an age when even great genius can and does claim rest, — even then his unquenchable spirit could not let him pause. Gior- gione, a mere boy, a pupil of his own, was begin- ning to show an art that, growth of his as it was, Sala M Oiovanm Bellini 83 was giving promise of being able to achieve far more than the old Venetian had yet accomplished. That was enough for Bellini. Most would not even have seen a new ideal. Bellini at once perceived that here was something beyond him, and began to> study the young Giorgione ! Bellini, of all the painters of Venice, has the truest, deepest, most touching piety. Without ex- aggeration, with a calmness that is seldom moved to tragic flutters, he has a devoutness, a religious spirit, that no other Venetian ever approaches. If not one of the greatest of draughtsmen, his draw- ing was sufficiently solid and actual, and no other painter in Venice, as well as all the rest of Italy, ever equalled the golden tone of his palette. There is something about the flesh as Gianbellini painted it that no one else has expressed. It has a glow that seems to come from within and spread through the flesh. There is no analyzing it. It seems as if it was something that had been breathed into it. Even Titian in the height of his power, though perhaps as rich or even more powerfully pulsing in gorgeous tones, is never quite like Gianbellini. Of Bellini’s ten pictures, all of the Madonna and Child, which are in the Academy, nine are in this room. Many of them are much repainted, two of the earliest being so thoroughly done over that there can be only guessing as to their first condition. 84 tfbe Hrf or tbe IDentce Bcabem$ One of these, the Virgin on a Throne with the Sleeping Child on Her Knees, has some indication of the Paduan character it must have first shown, and the other, with the Madonna holding the Child upright on a parapet before her while he makes the sign of blessing, may not be by Bellini at all. If his work, it was of his earliest days, and in spite of the villainous repainting also shows the Paduan influences. The Madonna and Child with the Glory of Cherubs was painted probably at the end of what is called his second period, when, as Mr. Fry ob- serves, “ his aim was to obtain perfectly modulated transitions of tone within a precise contour.” It, too, has been much repainted. The Madonna is a half-length figure, standing behind a rampart or wall. She holds the Child on her left knee, gazing at him with tenderness, one hand coming up on to his back, the long fingers of the other delicately pressing against his chest. He has on a one-piece garment, with low sleeves and tiny trousers, both pulled far up, showing arms and legs nearly bare. His whole regard is given to* the six fat little cherubs up in the sky, who seem to be singing for his special enjoyment. Behind is a landscape with low-lying hills and a curving, twisting, tree-bor- dered river. The realism of the chubby babe, with his IRoom 69 rival of the best Venetian artists before the rise of the sixteenth century.” Altogether, Cima exercises a fascination that can be traced partly to his unceasing care and attention to detail, partly to the cleanness as well as brilliance of his palette, partly to the skilful employment of contrasts of light and shade, but mostly to his sincerity and unassumingness. Cima never poses. He is as simple and direct as Botticelli was suggest- ive and involved. The subtleties were not for him. The open light of midday held a charm for him that no mysterious twilight could ever possess. And yet, garishness is the last sin he could be accused of. It is, after all, something of the naivete of the believer of the mediaeval years, that frame of mind farthest removed from either the modern scientific skeptic or the nineteenth-century psycho-religionist that is Cirna’s dominating trait. He comes to us like a simple strain of old country music, a folk- song, before modern harmonizers or composers have resolved it into* its original motifs , or used it for the groundwork of a great symphony. One of his most beautiful canvases is Tobias with the Angel, St. James, and St. Nicholas, now in this room. Originally it was a painting on wood, but in 1889 it was transferred to canvas, suffering greatly from the operation. It belonged to the sup- pressed church of the Misericordia. According to 7-2 Ube Brt of tbe Venice Hcabems blue, with white head-dress, at the left, each holding an arm of the dead Son and Master. At each side is one of the Marys, she at the left old, her right hand on the Mother’s shoulder. The other, prob- ably the Magdalen, younger, in a rose-toned robe and green mantle, has her hands joined in prayer. Here again is felt the severe but real piety of Cima, a piety that, if circumscribed and strictly within the laws of the Church, is equally never forced or hollow. The angular draperies and meagreness of forms help, raher than destroy, this feeling. The Incredulity of St. Thomas, which Cima painted for the School of the Masons at Venice, is in bad condition, the picture split, and the paint scaling off. In the centre of an open-arched por- tico', with coloured marble trimmings, stands Jesus, his white mantle leaving his chest and right shoulder bare. He is holding Thomas’s hand, and guiding it to the wound in his side. The excited, ques- tioning attitude of the skeptic Thomas, the anxiety to believe that struggles with his intellectual doubt, are admirably expressed in this figure. At the right, against a pillar, stands St. Nicholas, book and crozier in hand, his gorgeous cope embroidered and figured with beautifully wrought scenes on the orphreys. He is gazing at his two companions calmly and benevolently, this regard being the only MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH STS. DIONYSIUS AND LIBERALE By Cima da Conegliano IRoom f OTI. 73 compositional link connecting him with the scene. A landscape background, with low hills, is seen through the portico. The heads of these figures are all admirably con- ceived, and over all is the deep, unaffected reverence that is characteristic of Cima, as indeed, of most Venetians of his time. There is equally to be felt, nevertheless, the certain hardness and angularity and detachment of figure from its atmospheric sur- roundings, so very general with Cima. The same subject, wiith more figures, is in the National Gal- lery. In the Madonna Enthroned with Sts. Dionysius and Liberale, the Madonna and Child are in almost the identical positions of the altar-piece in Room n, the chief difference being that the baby there rests on his left leg, and in the larger work, on his right. On a marble pedestal, in front of a drapery against a flat marble wall, the Madonna is sitting in nearly full face, holding the baby upright on her left knee. He has turned his head over his left shoulder, look- ing down at St. Liberale, who stands beside the throne in front of an arched opening showing the landscape distance. On the other side is Dionysius, Bishop of S. Vittore, in front of a similar opening, his face in profile. This architectural background of the Madonna’s throne is exquisitely ornamented on pilaster and framing. In a lunette above her 74 Xlfoe Brt ot tbe IDentce Bcabemp head is Jesus between Peter and Paul. The colour of the whole picture is wonderfully rich and glow- ing, and the types are softer and less rigid than usual with Cima. Crowe and Cavalcaselle attribute the Madonna Enthroned between Sts. John the Baptist and Paul to Girolamo da Udine. Berenson and others, how- ever, give it to Cima. The Madonna sits in full face, clad in a red robe, blue mantle and white linen head-veil with embroidered border. The Child stands upright on her right knee, her right hand supporting him. His curly head is bent far to the right and he is gazing at the Baptist, who stands at the left of the picture. At the right, read- ing, is St. Paul. Behind the Mother and Child is a brown drapery with few folds, and in the distance a mountainous landscape, holding a castle on a rocky height. This, according to Mr. Berenson, has character- istics of Alvise Vivarini, of Montagna, and of Bar- bari. It is easy also to see the influence of Bellini. The type of Madonna is not unlike Bellini’s, though her features are rather more pinched and there is not the deep feeling in her face that can be found in the best Bellini Madonnas. The Child is a beau- tiful creation, — rounded, firm little body, full of life and spirit, gay, yet tenderly regardful in ex- pression. St. John is a gaunt figure, his dishevelled IRoom il^lTIT. 75 head of curls, his sunken cheeks, and bony chest re- calling Vivarini’s type. Paul is a well-fed, bald- headed man, face much wrinkled, hands delicate and badly constructed, not indicating much bony formation. The Child and St. John are both ex- cellent achievements. Still another by Cima is the St. Christopher. This was the central panel of a large altar-piece in seven panels painted for the Scuola dei Mercanti. It has an arched top, and is a narrow, upright panel. Through a stream, which is only half-way up to his knees, wades the gigantic figure of Christopher, leaning on a staff made of a whole date-tree. On his shoulder is the infant Christ, in green robe, holding a globe surmounted by a cross. Christopher is clad in a short blue tunic, which comes just to' his hips, bound with a yellow sash, a short cloak of red flying about his shoulders. Considerable movement is shown in all these draperies, as if the wind were tossing them about. His bearded face, surrounded with the thick, long curls that fall to his shoulder, is lifted toward the baby, his deep adoration showing in his big eyes. The careful modelling of face, legs, and arms, does not entirely prevent a feeling of archaism in the whole picture. Two pictures by Basaiti, the Dead Christ and the panel of the two saints, Anthony and James, are 7 6 Ube Brt of tbc IDentce Hcabem^ mediocre, even poor examples of his work. The first shows the dead body of Jesus stretched out on a board on top of a sepulchre. He is beardless and young, nude, save for a bit of drapery about his loins, and his face has a peaceful, calm dignity, un- marred by any expression of suffering. He is lying with his hands clasped on his abdomen, his face bent sidewise, bringing it into three-quarters posi- tion. There is a cruel gash in one side and the nail-marks gleam from the hands and feet, but the body is far less emaciated than the early artists were wont to' depict it. Two smiling little putti are at his head and feet, regarding him with a tender cheerfulness strangely at variance with the nature of the scene. A landscape of rugged, rocky slope stretches out back of the group. The two saints are standing in a Gothic-shaped niche, Anthony, with a long beard divided in the middle, holding a book in one hand, his bell at his feet, James with a book and staff. Of the two, Anthony’s head and face are much the better drawn and modelled. Marco' Basaiti was possibly a native of Friuli, but more likely he was born in Venice, somewhere near 1470. It is thought that at first he was an assistant of Alvise Vivarini, and, until after 1500, his style is distinctly Muranese. Gradually, under the influence of Bellini and Palma, he loses his IRoom fMIL 77 hard outlines, his opacity, and acquires a stronger sense of the value of light and shade. Whereas, consequently, his earlier pictures, like these in the Academy, are hard, angular, and primitive in con- struction and handling, his latest ones are soft, brilliant, and with abrupt transitions from light to shade. He seems, chameleonlike, to have adopted the outer characteristics of the men with whom he came in contact, but underneath all can be discovered the original Basaiti, with what critics have called his “ emptiness and monotone.” At the same time he has a certain dignity and earnestness of expres- sion that place him above a mere imitator. Vicenzo di Biagio, better known as Catena, was a pupil of Bellini, and was born probably about 1477. He died in Venice in 1531. He has usually been credited with being merely an imitator, first of Bellini, and later of Giorgione, and, until Morelli directed attention to him, was not even given place as a second-rate artist. Vasari, however, had ac- corded him great praise as a portrait-painter, and Morelli claims that many of his works have been ascribed to Bellini, and also to Giorgione, so that he is not known at his true worth. According to Morelli, after he had become influenced by Gior- gione, he became a really splendid colourist. The three works by him here give little hint of his later powers. The two 1 saints, Augustine and 78 Ube Hrt of tbe IDenice Bcabents Jerome, have been so tremendously repainted that their original state can only be surmised. The Ma- donna and Child with John the Baptist and Jerome is an early work, showing the influence of Bellini, and probably, too, of Vivarini. The severity of Mary’s countenance is the most noticeable thing in the picture. Catena’s best works are in the National Gallery and in the Mater Domini in Venice. CHAPTER IV. ROOM XVIII. — - SALA DI GIOVANNI BELLINI With the exception of the one picture by his father, Room 18 is given up entirely to the works of Giovanni Bellini. If the Vivarini of Murano were the first of the Venetians to make any successful attempt to throw off the yoke of the Byzantine traditions, another school was to achieve a more complete and lasting freedom, a freedom which was to land it, almost with one bound, among the great schools of paint- ing of all time. Jacobo or Jacopo Bellini, whose Mother and Child is in this room, was the father of the founder of this greater school, if, indeed, he may not be called the founder himself. Like Antonio Vivarini, Jocobo was a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, following that master in 'his travels, and once, at least, getting into prison for belabouring some of Gentile’s enemies. Born somewhere near 1400, Jacobo was in Padua for a number of years, where, in his workshop, he had many assistants, among them being his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, as well as Mantegna, who later married his daughter 79 8o Ube Hrt of tbe Wenice Hcabentp Niccolosia. What he really could accomplish, and how considerable an advance his art was over that of contemporary Venetian painters, is best indicated in his sketch-book now in the British Museum. In that, the studies for individual figures, the sketches for compositions, the drawings of statues, the bits of architecture, all show the artist’s attempt to go to nature for guidance, and show too that he not infrequently overcame the Greek tendencies and tra- ditions to a considerable extent. The few ex- tant paintings that are unquestionably his are all too much restored to demonstrate his ability as a painter. This is the case with the Madonna and Child here, which has been so thoroughly repainted that little of the original surface can be discerned. The Madonna, a half-length figure, her mantle sage green lined with dead leaf colour, holds her arms about the baby who is seated on a round cricket on a stone parapet before her. He is dressed in a crimson tunic, with a border made of Oriental char- acters in gold. In his left hand is an apple, and his right is raised in benediction. Making the bor- der of the halos about their heads are also Orien- tal letters of gold. The Madonna’s face is a very long oval with half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes and eyebrows highly arched. Numberless cherubim painted on a black background are behind the two. MADONNA AND CHILD By Jacopo Bellini Sala M 61 ot>anni BeiUnt 81 The inscription, “ Opus Jacobi Bellini, Veneti,” is on the frame, not on the work itself, but the frame is probably of the same date as the picture. Only in the general lines of this painting can Bellini’s hand be discerned. According to Vasari, Giovanni Bellini was older than his brother Gentile. It is pretty definitely set- tled now that in reality he was a year or two younger, — the date of Gentile’s birth being usually placed at 1426, and Giovanni’s at 1427 or 1428. Gianbellini, as he is called in contemporary records, was the greatest Venetian master of the fifteenth century. More than that, he was the teacher of Giorgione and Titian, and in his later works can be found the source of the heights reached by the Venetian school in the sixteenth century. Like Gentile, his first teacher was his father, and like Gentile also, his earliest work was strongly Paduan in character. More than apy other one thing which helped to direct his efforts can be counted the in- fluence of Mantegna. Each owes much to the other, but, at least for all the earlier part of his life, Gio- vanni is more indebted to Mantegna than to> any one else, and more than the Paduan is to him. No painter, perhaps, shows a more continuous and un- failing progress, throughout, too, so long a life, as Gianbellini. That it was a very slow progress, that only bit by bit, sometimes almost imperceptibly, did 82 Zhc Brt of tbe IDenice Bcafcent# he advance to the step beyond present achievement, is due possibly to a certain slowness of assimila- tion, not to any lack of inherent ability. For Bellini’s genius was not merely industry and per- severance. No labour, ever so hard or protracted, could alone produce the glorious masterpieces of Bellini’s middle and later life. His ripening was slow, but it was the ripening of perfect fruit, — and each stage of it had its own beauty, its own charm, and held within it the promise of the future perfec- tion. The man never seemed to be at the limit of his powers. Perhaps the greatest fascination of his greatest pictures is the sense they convey that there is no “ last word ” of their creator. Wonder- fully beautiful as they are, there is none of that finality about them that leads one to say, with a hint of disappointed satiety at the completeness, “ Here is as far as he can go. Never again can he exceed that result.” Rather, each work seems to hint of greater and more perfect possibilities, with- out in the least diminishing its own glories. And surely nothing in art is more inspiring than to remember how, an old man of eighty, with laurels heaped upon his brow, at an age when even great genius can and does claim rest, — even then his unquenchable spirit could not let him pause. Gior- gione, a mere boy, a pupil of his own, was begin- ning to show an art that, growth of his as it was, Sala M Giovanni Bellini 83 was giving promise of being able to achieve far more than the old Venetian had yet accomplished. That was enough for Bellini. Most would not even have seen a new ideal. Bellini at once perceived that here was something beyond him, and began to study the young Giorgione ! Bellini, of all the painters of Venice, has the truest, deepest, most touching piety. Without ex- aggeration, with a calmness that is seldom moved to tragic flutters, he has a devoutness, a religious spirit, that no other Venetian ever approaches. If not one of the greatest of draughtsmen, his draw- ing was sufficiently solid and actual, and no other painter in Venice, as well as all the rest of Italy, ever equalled the golden tone of his palette. There is something about the flesh as Gianbellini painted it that no one else has expressed. It has a glow that seems to come from within and spread through the flesh. There is no analyzing it. It seems as if it was something that had been breathed into it. Even Titian in the height of his power, though perhaps as rich or even more powerfully pulsing in gorgeous tones, is never quite like Gianbellini. Of Bellini’s ten pictures, all of the Madonna and Child, which are in the Academy, nine are in this room. Many of them are much repainted, two of the earliest being so thoroughly done over that there can be only guessing as to their first condition. 84 Ubc Brt ot tbe IDcntce Bcabem^ One of these, the Virgin on a Throne with the Sleeping Child on Her Knees, has some indication of the Paduan character it must have first shown, and the other, with the Madonna holding the Child upright on a parapet before her while he makes the sign of blessing, may not be by Bellini at all. If his work, it was of his earliest days, and in spite of the villainous repainting also shows the Paduan influences. The Madonna and Child with the Glory of Cherubs was painted probably at the end of what is called his second period, when, as Mr. Fry ob- serves, “ his aim was to obtain perfectly modulated transitions of tone within a precise contour.” It, too, has been much repainted. The Madonna is a half-length figure, standing behind a rampart or wall. She holds the Child on her left knee, gazing at him with tenderness, one hand coming up on to his back, the long fingers of the other delicately pressing against his chest. He has on a one-piece garment, with low sleeves and tiny trousers, both pulled far up, showing arms and legs nearly bare. His whole regard is given to the six fat little cherubs up in the sky, who seem to be singing for his special enjoyment. Behind is a landscape with low-lying hills and a curving, twisting, tree-bor- dered river. The realism of the chubby babe, with his Sala M Giovanni Bellini 85 mouth open in true baby style while he intently watches the angelic chorus, and the depth of ten- derness in the Mother’s face, make this a very lovely picture. It is painted in tempera, and Mr. Fry says of it that there is in it a “ conscious attempt at a strange effect of light, this time of early dawn, the pale apricot glow in the sky indicating the exact moment when the white of the Virgin’s head-dress becomes luminous, though the flesh is still in tone.” A similar type of face has the Madonna with St. George and St. Paul. There is the same slightly irregular nose, tip-tilted a bit, the usual finely drawn, but not thin eyebrow, the dimpled chin, and the mouth which is perhaps a trifle wide. Here the shadows about the eyes and the corners of the mouth show the sadness creeping more strongly upon her. Still more marked is her resemblance to the Madonna with the Two Trees, nearby. Her position, the way she holds the baby, and her gen- eral appearance are almost identical in the two> pictures. She is a half-length figure, standing behind a red marble rampart, upon which she holds upright the Child. Back of her is a red drapery, the sky show- ing beyond. At the right is St. George, at the left, St. Paul. Both are slightly behind her, her own ample robes covering more than half of their fig- 86 Zhc Brt of tbe tt)emce Hcabemp ures. St. Paul is bearded and bald, his fine lips close set, his eyes quiet, turned a little to his left, his right hand grasping his sword, an intentness that is wholly without nervousness manifest in his whole body. St. George, turned three-quarters to the left, is a tremendous figure, his short neck, clean-shaven face, and mighty chest suggesting the Arena or Wall Street rather than saintly vocation. A critic has remarked of his suit of armour that it has a “ mysterious quality . . . which is very different from Alvise’s straightforward and merely workmanlike painting of a similar motive in his Berlin altar-piece.” There is a sense of pause, of waiting, in the whole picture that is hard to define, but can be clearly felt. The watchful guard of the two saints, the lifted countenance of the Madonna, her deep, questioning, mournful eyes, all suggest a moment of tension, as real as it is unobtrusive. The Madonna with the Two Trees, which Crowe and Cavalcaselle assign to about the year 1487, according to Morelli could not have been painted before 1504. The exquisite atmospheric feeling in the tonal relations, the freedom in the modelling, especially, perhaps, in the beautiful little body of the babe, would seem tO' be evidence supporting Morelli’s contention. Before a flat drapery of light green, with a nar- MADONNA WITH THE TWO TREES By Giovanni Bellini Sala Giovanni JBelUni 87 row red border, is the half-length figure of Mary, standing behind a wall, of which only the very top shows. As has been said, her position, face, figure, and the way she holds the Child are practically the same as in the Madonna with St. George and St. Paul. The pose of the baby is also almost identical, except that here his head is turned a little more toward his left shoulder and is by this very placing much more natural. Except for pose, how- ever, there is little similarity between the two babies. With this one, Bellini shows far greater softness of texture, freedom of modelling, and looseness of handling, besides vastly more life and vitality. As Crowe and Cavalcaselle say, “ Bellini certainly never so completely combined relief with transparence, or golden tinge of flesh with a rich harmony of tints.” Not less notable is the Mother, whose noble dig- nity and gracious benignity are no more marked than her patient resignation, her self-surrender. The soft crimson-toned mantle, with its edge of golden embroidery, falls over her head and arms and shoulders, exposing a bit of the white veil across the forehead and at the neck. Behind the two', on each side of the green curtain, a landscape is visible, with the two tall, slender trees, that, ris- ing to the height of the Child, give their name to the panel. The lighting here is simple, unforced, 88 TEfoe Brt of fbe IDettice Bcafcems answering perfectly the needs of the composition. The draperies are equally effective, and the quiet repose of the whole picture is only slightly broken by the eager, wide-eyed gaze of the little Christ. Mary’s eyes are lowered, the pupils hardly showing, and, though they are turned downward to the baby, she seems rather to be looking beyond than at him. The Madonna with St. Catherine and Mary Magdalen, like so many of the other Bellini Ma- donnas, is depicted standing behind a wall or cop- ing, and both she and her two attendants are half- length figures. Her right arm is about the baby, who is seated on a white cushion on the wall, his head thrown back against his mother’s shoulder, his eyes lifted heavenward, his left hand out- stretched resting on her left. Mary is in a violet- toned robe, a blue mantle coming over her head, and showing her white veil falling on to her fore- head. She is in nearly full-face, her eyes turned to the left. At the right is Mary Magdalen, in a green dress and red mantle, the low corsage bor- dered with rows of pearls. Her hands are crossed on her bosom, her golden curls covering her ears and coming over her shoulders. At the left is Catherine, in a yellow robe with black figures and a brown mantle, strings of pearls ornamenting her dark hair. Her hands are folded before her, and she is gazing with adoration at the baby Jesus. MADONNA WITH ST. CATHERINE AND MARY MAGDALEN By Giovanni Bellini Sala fct Giovanni Bellini 89 The lighting in this picture is as if Bellini got his effects by some artificial means. The brilliance of the colours, the warmth of the flesh-tones, the rather strange chiaroscuro, are all admirably ex- pressed, with a surety and ease of handling that, if not quite so free as in the Madonna with the Two Trees, indicates at l^ast that the picture was certainly no earlier in date than 1448. The whole panel glows with a warmth and richness of colour and light unequalled before Bellini's day and per- haps never surpassed even by his own greatest pupils. In discussing this work, Mr. Fry says that the model of the Madonna was evidently the same as for the Frari Bellini, and goes on to add that “ the way in which the local colours are all modulated tO' a single key of rich golden brown is an antici- pation of Titian's art of arousing the sensations of colour by a varied monochrome. Here, for in- stance, SO' perfectly is the- key kept throughout, that the periwinkles in St. Catherine’s hair appear blue, though the actual pigment is almost brown gray.” There are in this room five little paintings by Bellini that are supposed to have been executed for the adornment of some marriage chest or other ornamental coffer. They are allegories, the sub- jects of which are disputed points. Until lately they have been supposed to represent Bacchus and 90 Ube Hrt of tbe IDenice Hcabem^ Mars, Venus, Fortune, Truth, and Calumny. The figures are about eight inches high, painted ap- parently in tempera on wood. “ In them,” as one critic says, “ can be seen the study of the antiques treasured in the museums of Venetian palaces,” and they are full of “ the spirit of Titian’s later bacchanals.” It is now thought that perhaps they are allegories of mediaeval subjects. Truth has been called Prudence, and Venus again, Fortune. The first shows Bacchus, if it be he, in a chariot drawn by three nude baby sprites, offering a basket of fruits to Mars, if it be he, again, who is walk- ing beside him, his yellow mantle flying in the wind. The background is a landscape. Venus, now sometimes called Fortune, is shown in profile, sitting in a slender boat which is being forced through the waves by some unseen power. She is dressed in a loose, sleeveless robe of white, and she helps support on her left knee a huge globe, which rests also on the shoulders of a little Love standing before her. Two other little Cupids are climbing into her lap, another is standing blow- ing on some pipes near the bow, and two more are frolicking in the waves beside the boat. Truth, or Prudence, stands in an arched recess by an open window. She is entirely nude, and is said to be Bellini’s only nude female figure. Turned three-quarters to the left, with head in nearly full Sala M dMovannt BelUni 9 1 face, she is standing on a round, drumlike base, resting on a stone foundation. In her right hand she holds a round mirror, to which she is point- ing with her left. At her feet two little Loves are leaning against the round base, one playing on a horn, and below them, at the right, is another, with a wreath on his head and a little mantle over his shoulders, playing on a drum. Fortune is a winged figure, the upper part of the body a woman, the lower a huge bird whose feet rest on two golden balls. In each hand she carries a slender pitcher, and over her eyes is a yellow bandage. Behind her is a broad reach of land- scape with winding stream, houses, and hills. In Calumny, in the foreground, are two men, one standing at the left, mounted on a step, and leaning on a staff, the other, at the right, holding up an enormous shell. From the end of this a nude man is sprawling, while a serpent twists about his arms. The landscape background has a chateau in the distance. These little panels are painted with the gaiety, the lightness, the esprit of a great man at play. Their colour is charming beyond words, with a freshness and delicacy that add to their fairylike quality. The handling, of miniature fineness, is not at all tight or hard. CHAPTER V. ROOM XV. SALA DI GENTILE BELLINI Gentile Bellini, all of whose works owned by the Academy are in Room 15, was born about 1426, and, as has been said, was a pupil of his father Jacopo. His earliest training was in Padua, where he worked with his father, brother, and Mantegna, and in his portrait of Doge Lorenzo Giustiniani, in the Academy, can be seen the Paduan rather than the Venetian elements. It is a good deal ruined by time and the restorer, but is still full of dignity, of power, almost of severity. M. Alex- andre says that one sees in it " la superbe froideur ” of the school of Padua. Gentile’s was a different art from that of his brother; different, indeed, from any that Venice, or Italy herself, had till then known. It was an art that largely confined itself to the external as- pect of things. It had a realism, and showed an observation of nature and surroundings far beyond that of any other of the school of Venice up to his 9 2 IRoom ftD. — Sala M Gentile Bellini 93 day. He had not the sweetness, nor the power, nor, perhaps, the imagination of his brother Giovanni. He had, however, a very fine feeling for values, a sense of harmony in colour, and, for the day, an unusual and extensive knowledge of the principles of perspective. He combined groups and handled crowds upon his panels with both ease and distinc- tion. He is especially known for his pictures of pageants, and if he does not achieve the glow and brilliance, the movement and colour, the grouping and composition, of that later, greater painter of Venetian feast and pageant, Veronese, it is rather because of the limitations necessitated by the time in which he lived than by his own inherent abilities. He was sober, self-contained, and dignified, and his pictures, so far as the ravages of time and the re- storer can permit one to judge, show a delicate just- ness in tone combination and tone juxtaposition that speak as well for his sanity as for his colour sense. From contemporary records it is evident that Gentile was highly esteemed in his own day. It was he who was sent as representative painter when the Sultan of Turkey begged for the loan of one of the best artists of Venice. His stay of a year or so under the orders of Mehemet gave him a chance to study the Oriental in his own surround- ings, and, after his return home, he often intro- 94 Ufoe Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabern^ duced Oriental costumes into his pictures of con- temporary life. The three great scenes in this room, illustrating legends of the relic of the True Cross, were painted for the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista. The two least injured by washing and repainting are the Procession in the Piazza of San Marco and the Miracle of the Holy Cross, in which the shrine of the relic is saved from the waves by a priest of the order. The first gives an exact representation of the Piazza di S. Marco' as it was in the fifteenth cen- tury. San Marco, the base of the Campanile, and the Doge’s Palace, the Colonnade, all the exquisite detail of sculptured marble and ornament, the beau- tiful mosaics over the portals of the church, just as they were before the alterations of the seven- teenth and eighteenth century, are all portrayed with a scrupulous fidelity which makes the scene valuable as an historical document, if for nothing else. Not less carefully has Gentile depicted the crowds that number into the hundreds, and yet little more than make a border for the great square. The costumes, the head-dresses, the postures of these many individuals, are as exactly accurate as if each were a portrait, and the pose, gesture, and movement of all are almost as natural as if a kodak had snapped the scene. Almost, only, be- IRoom — Sala bl Gentile Bellini 95 cause some of the figures are too' short and dumpy and show, in a certain crudeness of construction, the primitive school from which Gentile sprung. Across the front of the picture is the long line of white-robed priests guarding the canopy under which is carried the sacred relic. The procession has started from the archway between S. Marco and the Ducal Palace, and the end of it is still seen emerging from there. It then winds up the piazza by the Campanile and the houses that were then next it, turns to the left, across the square, down into the other side. The thronging populace makes a solid bank, in front of which the procession marches, and in the many faces watching the train Gentile has shown that he was well worthy of the fame accorded him as portrait-painter. Farther back in the Piazza are many others, priests, beg- gars, gay gallants, prince and princess, and ladies in waiting, all in the rich Venetian robes of the period, all in positions as diverse as natural. Here and there are traces of archaism, but, although one may not fully agree, -one can understand why Crowe and Cavalcaselle should have said of the picture, “ There is no doubt that this is the most important extant work of the Venetian school pre- vious to the advent of Titian.” Scarcely less remarkable, though in parts more primitive, is the other, the Miracle of the Holy 9 6 Zbc Brt of tbe Denice Bcabem^ Cross. Here again are the crowds of people, this time with more women among them. Here are the marble houses, with perspective and architec- ture both so true and realistic. Again it is a Pro- cession of the Holy Cross, now crossing the little three-arched bridge over one of the smaller canals. The bridge occupies the middle distance, and makes a curved horizontal line across the composition. The narrow street at the base of the houses on the left, next to the canal, as well as the bridge itself, is packed with men, women, and children. All are gazing at the water. The holy relic has dropped into the waves, and while gondolas have been put off to search for it, others among the faithful have cast themselves bodily into the water to capture it. According to the tradition, however, the Holy Cross would allow no one to' touch it except Vendramin, the head of the Order. And in the middle of the picture, almost in the imme- diate foreground, is the priest, apparently walking through the water, holding the relic above his head. There is something of the grotesque in this float- ing figure, but nevertheless the really great attri- butes of Gentile’s art can be seen here also. Another Miracle of the Cross, in the same room, has been so changed from its original condition, both by age and by the vandal called restorer, that MIRACLE OF THE HOLY CROSS IRooin fit)* — Saia M Gentile Bellini 97 there is practically nothing left to show what it once was. There are other pictures here illustrating other legends of the relic of the True Cross, by Mansueti and Bastiano, but, though of later date than those by Gentile, they are more archaic in treatment and far less interesting in conception. Giovanni Mansueti was born near 1450, and he, as well as Bastiano, was called by the Brotherhood of S. Giovanni Evangelista to decorate their Scuola. He was an imitator of Gentile Bellini, and he also recalls Carpaccio, though in neither case does he ever approach his example. He did not draw very well, his figures were short and awkward, and he never expressed the variety of action and movement so characteristic of Gentile. Partly from his great fondness for introducing Oriental costumes into his compositions, it is supposed that he may have gone with Gentile to Constantinople. In one of the pictures in the Academy he signs himself a pupil of Giovanni Bellini. His colour was generally dry and hard, with little of the brilliance of Carpaccio. According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, his most masterly composition is one of the episodes in the Life of St. Mark, which is in that part of Room 15 once the apse of the old Gothic church. This was in the School of St. Mark, and shows the people of Alexandria listening to the Disciple preaching 9 8 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabetns in a temple. The same critics quoted above say that “ there is no picture, not excepting the Bap- tism of Anianus in the Brera, in which Mansueti more nearly approaches Carpaccio.” It represents a square, or place in Alexandria, surrounded by houses with balconies. A crowd of Venetians and Orientals are about, some on foot, some on horse- back. At the left, in the middle distance, St. Mark is seen in prison, visited by Christ, accompanied by an angel. The other incident, which gives its name to the picture, is also in the middle distance, and shows a temple where St. Mark is preaching to the people crowding about. This is, perhaps, the best bit of the whole. At the right, upon a throne, is an Oriental magistrate. These diverse incidents, disconnected as they are in time and place of happening, have a certain co- herency in arrangement that makes them seem not entirely unrelated parts of a fairly well-balanced composition. St. Mark Healing Anianus, also in the apse, has been greatly hurt by restoration. The scene is sup- posed tO' take place in Alexandria again. Anianus, a cobbler, who has wounded himself with an awl, is sitting in the centre of the market-place, and by him, holding his wounded hand, stands St. Mark, dressed in a tunic and cloak of blue. On the knees of Anianus are the shoes he was working upon. IRoom fliL-Sala M Gentile Bel lint 99 Around are a number of assistants and spectators in turbans and Oriental costumes; at the left are two knights, and next to a reclining camel a mer- chant and two customers. In the background is a two-storied building, and on the stairways a num- ber of people listening or looking on. On the first floor of this building, in a large hall with columns are an official and his court, and the second-story balconies are crowded with spectators. This, like the other, was painted for the Scuola of S. Marco. Near this is the Healing of the Daughter of Benvenuto, which has been wrongly attributed to Lazzaro. It shows the entrance and approach to a beautiful Venetian palace, as well as the interior of one of its large rooms. This double view is obtained by omitting the front wall of the house. Below, at the foot of the stairs which lead to the second story, is a crowd of Venetians, and drawn up to the curbing a couple of gondolas. The stair- way, too, is lined with people, and in the room above are her mother and father holding candles and other watchers about the bed of the blind girl. The legend is that the daughter of Niccolo Ben- venuto da San Paolo was blind, having no pupils to her eyes, and that she was healed by a blessed candle which had been burned before a relic of the True Cross. His perspective here is remarkably good, and ioo Ube Ert ot tbe IDentce Bcafcemp the architectural surroundings are executed with a correctness and nicety of finish hardly excelled by Gentile Bellini himself. The attitudes and movements of the figures, also, are simply and truthfully indicated. The Burial of an Unbeliever illustrates the legend which relates that a member of the Brother- hood of S. Giovanni Evangelista expressed doubts during his life of the marvellous powers of the relic of the True Cross. When he himself was dead, and the funeral cortege with the cross started on its way, the whole procession was stopped at the church door by some invisible but unconquer- able power, which prevented any further progress. Not till another cross was brought and the relic carried back to its own altar could the procession move forward. The picture shows the funeral train crossing a wooden bridge over the little canal leading to the piazza in front of the church. At the open door of the sanctuary at the right, the procession, with its priests and mourners, was halted. In front, crowds of Venetians kneel or stand gazing. On the bridge, at the extreme left end, a young man stands bareheaded, with a scroll in his hand, on which is written, “ O’pus Joannis D. Masuetis, Veneti, Rute Sententium, Bellini Discip.” The figure is supposed to represent Mansueti, and he IRoom fit). — Sala t>t ©entile Bellini IOI thus avows himself both a pupil of Bellini and a firm believer in the truth of the story he is depict- ing. Lazzaro di Sebastiano, a fellow worker with Mansueti in the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista, was born near 1450, and died probably in the neighbourhood of 1508. Padua is generally re- garded as his birthplace, and it has been supposed that he was a pupil of Carpaccio. It is more likely that he worked with Alvise Vivarini, and also with Giovanni Bellini. He never showed much original- ity or strength, but he was well known, and had an honourable position in Venice, where he was a member of the College of S. Girolamo. It has been said of him that he was always “ vulgar and realistic and of a melancholy dryness in colour/’ but that he gave to his figures, “ after falling under the influence of Venice, something more nearly al- lied to delicacy and slenderness, and he entered into the spirit of the changes introduced by the ap- plication of oil mediums.” One of his best works is the Gift of the True Cross, in Room 15, in which he is shown as an imitator of Gentile Bellini. In the background is the porch of the church S. Giovanni Evangelista. In front of this, Philip of Massari kneels, presenting to priests of the Order the holy relic. Under the portico three monks are io2 uhc Brt of tbe Venice Bcabems kneeling, back to, clad in richest ecclesiastical trap- pings. From right and left come the brothers, bearing lighted tapers. In the foreground in the square are a number of assistants, and right and left, again, upon the steps, Venetian patricians. The portico is surmounted by a terrace, on which are seen many assistants, and which leads, at the left toward a church, at the right toward a house, on the balcony of which a woman is standing. In this picture the influence, not alone of Gentile, but also of Carpaccio and even of Mansueti, is evident. CHAPTER VI. ROOM XVI. — SALA DEL CARPACCIO Vittore Carpaccio, whose St. Ursula pictures entirely fill this octagonal room once a part of the Church of the Carita, is a subject of considerable controversy to the critics. It is not known ex- actly when or where he was born, nor is the date of his death definitely settled. The probabilities, however, seem to be that, though calling himself a Venetian, he was actually born at Capo dTstria, somewhere about 1450. The earliest known work by him is dated 1490, and his latest, according to Molmenti, 1521. Gentile Bellini was his master, though he seems also to ’have been influenced by Alvise Vivarini. His first works are in tempera, but he abandoned that medium to adopt the more easily managed oil. It has been conjectured that he went with Gentile on his trip to Constantinople, but this has not been proved ; the fondness he shows for Oriental costumes could have easily originated in Venice, where were met the nations of the earth. Carpaccio unites in his works some of the attri- 103 io4 Zbc Ert of tbe IDenlce Hcabem$ butes of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, of Alvise Vivarini, at the same time keeping much that re- calls the Primitives. But he is not merely a com- posite of all these tendencies. Pie has a distinct personality of his own that effectually differentiates him from all others of his contemporaries. All critics have granted Carpaccio preeminence as a story-teller. Though his fetes and pageants may recall Gentile Bellini in conception, Carpaccio’s treatment of these typically Venetian subjects makes them all his own. There is a lightness of fancy, a brightness of view, a serenity of regard, a frank joyousness about all his work very unlike the sober dignity and simple poise of Gentile’s pro- cessions. Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio, Veronese, — these three painters filled their canvases with Venice, Venice en fete . Carpaccio has not the splendour, the magnificence, the gorgeousness of Veronese, any more than he possesses the sedateness and im- pressiveness of Gentile. But he has what neither of these men had so fully, if at all. There is ab- solute sincerity in all his work, though the playful, the gay, is seldom lacking. He is not so good a draughtsman as Gentile, he has not the depth of tenderness or profound piety of Giovanni. But he has, nevertheless, a joyful sanity, a strong sense of the picturesque, and always and everywhere the IRoorn flDIL — Sala Del Carpaccio 105 love for incident, for action, for life, especially and ever for Venetian life. In his compositions live again the streets, the costumes, the customs of the days and nights of the City of the Lagune in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. What- ever story Carpaccio tells, it is always Venice that is his background, — Venice the beautiful, the youthful, the Venice of intense life, of care-free days. If in Gianbellini is first felt the wealth, the glow, the depth of colour that was to be the pre- dominant characteristic of this North Italian school, Carpaccio was no mere follower. His brush has a golden limpidity of tone, a sweetness and mellow- ness that were his alone, and that are as distinctive of his art as is his love of pageant and running story. These Ursula pictures are the first works which are credited to him. They were painted for the Scuola di Sant’ Ursula, between 1490 and 1495. This Scuola was a benevolent institution in Venice for the support and education of orphaned girls. St. Ursula, according to the story, was the daugh- ter of a certain King of Brittany, Theonatus in English, Mauro in the Italian version. Ursula was a most devout maiden, and had refused all the many suitors for her hand, determined to live a life wholly consecrated to the Church. When Agrippinus of England asked her hand in mar- jo 6 Zhc Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabem# riage for his son Conon, King Mauro wished her to accept. Ursula agreed on three conditions: first, that Agrippinus should give her eleven thou- sand maidens of noble birth for attendants; next, that for three years they should accompany her on a pilgrimage to Rome to visit the shrines; and, lastly, that Prince Conon and all his suite should turn Christian. These terms were accepted, and Conon set out at once to make her a visit before she began her pilgrimage. At length Ursula and her maidens were welcomed at Rome by Pope Cyriacus, and joined there by Prince Conon and his suite, who came by a different way. Here Ursula tells him that she has dreamed that she and her maidens will all be martyred at Cologne, a city they would pass through on their return home. The prince at that resigned all hope of marrying, and was baptized by the Pope, receiving the name of Ethereus, indicative of his purity of heart and purpose. With their arrival at Cologne came the fulfilment of the princess’s dream. They were surrounded by the Huns, then besieging the city, and all were put to death. Conon died at his betrothed’s feet, and she and her companions were killed by the arrows of the heathen. Then the spirits of all the party ascended into heaven. This is the legend that not only Carpaccio but earlier painters chose as subject for their brush. Hans IRoom flDIL — Sala fcel Carpaccio 107 Memlinc, in Bruges, had already painted the Shrine of St. Ursula, and Carpaccio’s work bears a near relationship with Memlinc’s conception of the story. Carpaccio, indeed, has, to many critics, suggested the Flemish painter in his works. The series has been universally regarded as al- together the greatest work of Carpaccio’s brush. As colour effects they are restrained, quiet, almost monochromatic in their golden brown tones, with little of the glow and scintillation usually associated with the Venetian colour, or with some of Car- paccio’s own altar-pieces. But there is a gaiety, a charm to the colour, a frank revelling in the bright costumes, the brilliant surroundings, that, while not detracting from the real earnestness of the scenes, give a fairylike sparkle to them all. The figures themselves are not remarkably well drawn. As recent critics have remarked, they are often “ spindle-shanked, short-bodied, and sometimes cloven almost to the waist by their long legs ; their faces are frequently homely, others of them are lacking in construction, but the charm of his work makes up for all, while the lightness of treatment of sacred legend is qualified and ennobled by some of the clearest and most golden colour to be found in the whole range of art.” The series, described in order of occurrence of scene rather than by the placing on the walls, be- io8 ufoe Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabem$ gins with the one showing the Ambassadors of the English King Asking the Hand of Mauro’s Daugh- ter and the Conference between King Mauro and Ursula. Such combining of distinct and time- separated incidents, depicted with no separation except the columns of a loggia and the open wall of a room, ought, by all the laws of composition, to be a failure. Actually, it is not only one of the best of the nine, but is excellent in spacing, in mass- ing, in climax. None better than Carpaccio knew how to subordinate detail, and bring the ends of his pictures together into one composite, coherent whole. The introduction of varying and numbers of incidents does not, with Carpaccio, make a dis- jointed, episodic composition. The picture is a long panel, nine feet high by nineteen long, not quite three times as wide as it is high. The central part is occupied by Mauro’s open audience-hall, a hall with ceiling and one solid frescoed wall, against which, on a platform, is seated the king and his court. Before him kneel the ambassadors, the first presenting the letter of King Agrippinus. His robe of rich gold brocade, with its embroidered flowers of black, catches the light on the shoulder and arm, while his companion, on the lower step, is more completely in the light. The distribution of light in this whole panel, the spotting of the figures against the higher-keyed THE AMBASSADORS OF THE ENGLISH KING ASKING THE HAND OF MAURO’S DAUGHTER By Carpaccio IRoom £D1L — Sala t>el Carpaccio 109 background and the slightly more sombre end di- visions, are all means Carpaccio takes to make a well-balanced composition despite the varying inci- dents depicted. Leaning on the slender railing, which fences off this open reception hall from the piazza behind, are a number of citizens' watching the ceremony within. Beyond them, the open, sunlit square is dotted with people in fifteenth-century Venetian costumes. An octagonal Basilica, other buildings, and glimpses of a garden behind, a wall bordering a canal with ships at anchor, make a truly Venetian setting for this home of the King of Brittany. A loggia opens into 1 the audience-hall at the left, and through its arches, separated by marble pillars, gleams the sea itself. Here, within the railing again, are numbers of attendants and courtiers, and at the extreme left, outside, standing at the corner, is another subject of Brittany in cap and gown. He makes an effective foil for the woman at the other end of the panel, who is sitting on the lower step of the short flight leading to the room where Maura and his daughter are conversing. This room has its outer wall completely removed, a customary way with both Gentile Bellini and Car- paccio to introduce the spectator into the interior of a house. At the left of a very bare little room the king sits leaning his head on his hand, while no TTbe Hrt of tbe Denice Bcabem£ Ursula stands before him counting off on her fin- gers the conditions upon which she will accept Conon. This end of the panel is considered the least satisfactory of the three divisions. The next panel shows King Mauro Bidding Fare- well to the Ambassadors. He is sitting at the left, on a throne raised several steps above the floor in a handsomely frescoed hall which opens at the right through big doors into another. This second apartment has a finely proportioned winding stair- way, over which people are passing. Before Mauro kneels one of the ambassadors, and lower down is another. Back of these a secretary is writing at a table, with an officer standing near. At the right, two pages and assistants stand next an open door. Numbers of these are leaning against the balus- trade of a wooden stairway. In the distance gleams a canal bordered with houses. Here again the ef- fect produced by the lighting of the picture reminds one of Pieter de Hooch. The third panel is the Ambassadors’ Return with the Reply of King Mauro. This is a picture of a square or piazza fronting on a canal, all very Venetian, though supposed to represent England! The people are scattered loosely about the scene, and are of really secondary importance. At the right, in an octagonal pavilion with marble pillars supporting the roof, is the king, who, by the way, •Room f IDf . — Sala Pel Carpaccio III is far from prepossessing in countenance. He is surrounded by his courtiers, and before him kneels one of the returned ambassadors. Farther back, extending almost to the middle of the composition, is a crowd of people listening to the news. Still more people crowd the bridge and other side of the canal. In the foreground at the left a richly dressed noble, presumably one of the other ambassadors, is hastening forward, as if already late. Standing directly in his way are two young nobles, one, back to 1 , magnificently clothed in brocaded robes which the sunlight throws into high relief. He has golden curls, and in his youthful bearing gives credence to Ruskin’s theory that he is Conon himself, inter- rupting the ambassadors in his eagerness to> hear Ursula’s answer. Some of the amusing incidents that Carpaccio always loves to introduce are here in full effect. On the steps of the pavilion a monkey, dressed in the costume of a Venetian senator, is gravely ey- ing a peahen; and at the extreme left, behind a man sitting on a stool, is a comically arrayed boy playing on a viol. The ships drawn up to the wharf, the floating banners, the distant architecture, as well as the beautiful marble structures in the middle distance, and especially the effect of the sunlight which flashes over the scene, show both Carpaccio’s joyous humour and his love of his 1 12 zrbe Hrt ot tbe Dentce Bcafcems own city. It is a lively, naturalistic composition, and the linear perspective, as in the whole series, is wonderfully perfect. In the fourth panel there are once more a number of incidents. A tall flagstaff divides the panel into two' parts. At the left rise the castle-crowned heights of the English king, sloping down to the sea. At the right are the palace and quays of Brit- tany. The right side is really a view of Venice, the left, with its clumsy towers and fortifications, evi- dently supposed to represent more nearly what the capital of a heathen king might be. Separating the two ports is the sea, making thus practically one harbour, with an outline against the horizon in the centre, where huge ships are plying back and forth. Across the foreground of the picture runs an em- bankment, or wharf, and on this, as if on a stage, are displayed the personages of the story. At the left, before a crowd of people, Agrippinus is lean- ing forward, saying good-bye to his son, who- kneels before him, several of his attendants standing near. On the other side of the flagstaff Conon is again shown, just landed, and hurrying forward with out- stretched hands to greet Ursula, who, with only one attendant, is there to meet him. Directly at the right of this waiting-woman the betrothed ones are again depicted, kneeling before Mauro and his queen, who stands with handkerchief to her eyes. tRoom fIDIK — Sala fcel Carpaccio 113 Mauro has his left hand on Ursula’s shoulder and is clasping her right hand fast within his. The young prince kneels upright, his golden curls falling on to his shoulder, while Ursula’s long, straight hair floats down almost to her knees. The pathos and a real intensity of expression here have captivated everybody. Many critics have gone into ecstasies, also, over the beautiful faces of Ursula and her betrothed. But, as the recent edi- tors of Vasari critically remark, the faces are, “ in reality, the profiles of charming paper dolls. If we compare them with the homely features of the am- bassadors to King Mauro, or of the councillors who sit in a row, we shall see that the heads of prince and saint alike, graceful as they are, lack any con- struction, and are abnormal, or very nearly so, as to cranial development.” Nevertheless, this episode is perhaps one of the most genuinely appealing in the whole series, and, in spite of the deficient cranial construction and modelling, the group of father, mother, prince, and princess affects one like a tender tale from some old missal, — quaint, archaic even, yet permeated with a spirit of the eternal verities, striking true to the heart of humanity. Number five is the Meeting of Pope Cyriacus and Ursula outside the walls of S. Angelo at Rome. The Pope, with a vast concourse of cardinals and prelates, whose line extends far back to the castle, 1 14 Uhc Brt of tbe IDenice Bca&emp stands in the centre of the foreground blessing Ursula, who, with three of her maidens, kneels before him. Back of these, in a long, sweeping curve of three or more abreast, come all the rest of her maidens. A company of youths, among whom, presumably, is Conon, is in the centre of the pic- ture, directly behind the cardinals about the Pope. They carry tall, waving banners, which break against the sky in slender, sharp-edged masses. In none of the series, except, perhaps, the Dream, does Ursula’s charming girlhood show to more advan- tage. The simplicity of her bearing, the deep piety expressed in her position and lifted face, all con- trast effectively with the pomp of the Church, as represented in the richly robed prelates. And, al- though the story the picture tells would tax credu- lity to the utmost, the telling is so straightforward, so unadorned, that one believes it as, at ten, one believes Hans Andersen. The proper sequence brings next Ursula’s Dream. All the panels have been repainted and have suf- fered hardly from the ravages of time, but perhaps none has been so* blatantly modernized as this, the most entrancing of the nine. Beside Carpaccio’s name and the date 1495 are found the words, “ Cor- tinus R (restauravit) 1752.” It is not difficult to see the self-satisfied smirk which dominated that eighteenth-century vandal as he signed his name IRoom flDIL — Sala fcel Carpaccio 115 with a flourish to 1 his completed work of ruin. Nevertheless, in spite of his worst, which, after all, was probably his best, “ Cortinus ” has not entirely despoiled this flower of Carpaccio’s creation. It is the interior of a large, stately chamber, quietly yet sumptuously furnished in fifteenth-cen- tury Venetian style. At the left, in a handsomely carved bed, its four tall, slender posts bearing a narrow, many pointed canopy, lies Ursula asleep. She is tightly tucked under the red coverlet and turned over sheet, her hand under her cheek, her eyes fast closed, seeing only in the dream the an- gelic visitor who has come to warn her of her approaching martyrdom. The angel stands at the foot of the bed in the midst of a spreading light that floods angel, floor, and couch. The pose of the heavenly visitant is wonderfully effective. It is as if she had just been wafted in by that very light that spreads about her. This light, indeed, is so beautifully studied, so expressive in its realism, that Berenson seems not far afield when he says that the picture is really that Tof a room with the light playing softly upon its walls, upon the flower-pots in the window, and upon the writing-table and the cupboards.” Like the Dutch painters, he says again, Carpaccio is a painter of “ genre ,” and deals with his subject “ for the sake of its own pictorial capabilities and for the sake of the effects of colour n6 zhc Hrt of tbe liJenice Hcabemp and of light and shade.” At the same time the sympathetic treatment here has so reverent a qual- ity, so tender and expressive, that even those who do not need a literary element in a picture to appre- ciate it must feel the beauty and pathos of this story. In the seventh, Ursula arrives at Cologne, a pic- ture principally of huge-hulled ships at anchor be- fore a walled city, from whose towers flags and banners fly. In the foreground some soldiers are standing talking, and a dog lies on a float, one of the natural, homely bits Carpaccio was always in- serting. Frightfully hurt by retouching is the Martyrdom and Funeral of Ursula. Two-thirds of the picture are devoted to the massacre of the maidens by the Huns. In the foreground, Ursula kneels with prayer-folded hands, waiting calmly for the arrow with which a gorgeously armoured Hun is about to pierce her breast. Equally unmoved appear all her maidens, each one meeting her death with a tranquillity as touching as it is extraordinary. On the other hand, there is little rage or ferocity dis- played by the Huns. Almost they seem to say politely, “ By your leave, mesdames,” before they shoot. At the right is a very beautiful little scene. Mounting the steps of a church are the four priests IRootti fM. — ©ala bel Carpaccio 117 bearing the bier upon which the dead princess lies as if asleep, her pure, delicate profile as quietly at peace as in her dream. Behind them come more officers of the Church, and in the foreground at the steps kneels a woman praying. Over all is the soft and tender light Carpaccio knew so well how to express. S. Ursula in Glory receiving her crown is the last of the series. Under a roofless arcade kneel the company of virgins martyred with Ursula. All are gazing upward at the princess, who, stand- ing on a pedestal made of palms, is raised above their heads. About her fly little angels, two over her head holding the crown she is to wear. Above all is the figure of God, the Father, with extended arms. The lines of the composition here are en- tirely unsatisfactory, and not at all up to Car- paccio’s standard. But in the earnestness of the maidens’ faces and in the soft beauty of Ursula’s, he has displayed so deep a piety and belief that, as an expression of religious fervour, it has always been accorded great praise. Of the entire series, Messrs. Blashfield and Hopkins say, “ The dream of Ursula is the most naively charming, the scene of the ambassadors the most sober and closely studied, that of the meeting of the prince and Ursula the most pic- torial and entertaining.” CHAPTER VII. ROOM V. — SALA DEI BELLINIANX Carlo Crivelli, who has two mutilated spec- imens of his work in the room called Sala dei Belliniani, is supposed to have been born some- where near 1440. Though he always signed him- self a Venetian, he has nothing in common with the painters whose works at once stamp them as Venetian. There is no> relation observable between him and Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, or Tintoretto. His works, however, do show the influence of Squarcione and the Vivarini. “ Crivelli’s special achievement,” as a critic has justly observed, “ was to perpetuate in a more modern form all that was best in the Byzantine tradition.” He left Venice early and settled for the rest of his life, it is believed, in the Marches, a district with no large cities, and thus away from the influ- ence of the art already changing greatly under Mantegna and the Bellini. Like the Byzantines and early Venetians, his use of gold was prodigal, and up to the end of his career he built out in re- 118 IRoorn ID. — Sala bet Belltntant 119 lief gold ornaments, bits of architecture, brocades, etc. He painted principally large anconas of often ten panels and sometimes with a predella added. They generally consist of a Virgin and Child in the centre, supported by four saints, two on a side. Above these are more panels of half-length figures, the central one here usually being the Pieta. In general, it may be said that from almost the begin- ning to the end of his artistic career he changed comparatively little; it was seldom that he painted a composition of connected and related figures, though in his later years he sometimes disregarded the many panelled piece, and began to> group his figures of saints around the Madonna and Child without any intervening framework. Up to the last he did not often succeed in portraying any very great depth of emotion, but he could express dig- nity, a certain exquisite poise of manner, and a gentle grace. In his later age his brocades, archi- tectural adjuncts, and hangings, all become more and more elaborate. He studied his flowers and fruit from nature, and in almost all his composi- tions used them with fine decorative effect. In the scenes painted with outdoor surroundings he often introduced animals, also carefully and painstak- ingly studied from life. In fact, in all his acces- sories he shows a keen regard, a sharp eye for reality. He always painted in tempera, “ but he 120 Uhc Brt ot tbe Venice Bcabents used it with a perfection which has never been sur- passed.” He did not, apparently, know much about chiaroscuro, his tones are almost as flat as a Japanese painter’s, and they are as fresh and clear to-day as if they had been applied yesterday. He was, as he has been often called, a reaction- ary. He did not belong to the march of time. He remains, as it were by choice, archaic in his sub- jects, in his types, in his treatment, in his point of view. His figures are long, often ill-con- structed, he does not keep proper proportions be- tween figures on the same plane, he has limited ideas of anatomy, of perspective. Within his own lines, however, he was a really great master. His decorative qualities are many and charming, his feeling is simple, sweet, and strong. His two round-topped wooden panels in this room originally each held two saints. In the first are St. Jerome and St. Augustine, in full canonicals. St. Jerome, dressed as a cardinal, is at the right, holding two books, on the top of which is a model of a church. Standing looking at him, at the left and slightly behind, is Augustine, or Gregory, as he has also been called, in papal robes. Above is a six-winged cherub, and below, on the ground at the left, and only half in the picture, a conven- tionalized lion. In the other panel, part of the painting is IRoottt 10.— Sala t>el BelUitianl I 2 I rubbed off, leaving only half of the figure of St. Peter. He is reading from a book, while St. Paul looks over his shoulder. The latter is dressed in red and green, and has his left hand on a sword. On the floor are two> books. Over their heads, also, is a six-winged cherub. Both panels have gold backgrounds. They were originally in S. Domenico, Camerino, but until recently had been in possession of the Marchese Servanzi Colli at S. Sever ino. Apparently they were once the out- side panels to a large altar-piece. They are in Crivelli’s usual style, and were evidently painted at about the middle of his career. The four saints, Roch, Sebastian, Emidio, Bernard of Siena, with a brocaded hanging behind each, are probably by Vittore Crivelli, brother of Carlo, but vastly inferior artist to him. A Pieta and a Crucifixion in this room have been ascribed to Donato Veneziano, who is thought to have been either a pupil* or assistant of Bellini, or else a mere imitator of his manner. The Pieta, if by him,, is at best, it is claimed, only a copy of one in the Berlin Museum now at- tributed to Bellini. It is on canvas in oil, and the figures are half-length. Jesus is shown sitting on the tomb supported by Mary and John. Much of it has been repainted. The Crucifixion is better executed, and critics 122 Ufee Brt of tbe Denice Bcabem^ have doubted whether Donato ever was respon- sible for it, even in its original estate. Mary Mag- dalen is kneeling at the foot of the cross, at the right are St. John and St. Bernard of Siena, at the left, the Madonna and St. Francis. Jerusalem is seen in the background between two> trees, with mountains in the distance. The colours are bright, and it is painted in a high key. Two pictures by Mansueti are in this room, the Virgin and Child with Saints and the group of Five Saints. The first shows the Madonna seated in the centre, the baby Christ in her arms. He is blessing the donor, who, kneeling at the left, is being presented by St. Peter. The latter is in a green robe, and has his hand on the shoulder of the donor. At the right are two> other saints, one in the foreground three-quarters turned to the left, dressed in a green robe and red mantle, the other, farther back, also in a green robe, holding an open book. There is a landscape background, with a village on the shore of a river at the left. In the other panel, St. Sebastian is in the cen- tre, Sts. Francis and Roch at the right, Sts. Gregory and Liberale at the left. The scene is in a pillared corridor, or loggia, with a tiled floor. Bound to one of the pillars is Sebastian, nude save for a brown loin-cloth, his arms tied over his head, the death-dealing arrows still sticking into IRoorn ID* — Sala t>et Belltntant 123 him. Behind the five is stretched a red drapery with green border. All the figures, with the possi- ble exception of Gregory, are standing with their weight thrown firmly on one leg, St. Roch on his left, St. Francis on his right, St. Liberale on his left again, St. Sebastian on his right. This brings the position of the feet and legs of these figures, already too much on a line, in curiously similar angles, and adds to the artificiality of the picture. In spite of this, however, there are much earnest- ness and dignity in the figures of the saints them- selves, and in the composition as a whole. About the same age as Bastiani, probably, was Bartolommeo Montagna, a Brescian by birth, but who seems to have got his training mostly in Venice, and who lived and worked in Vicenza, a neighbouring city of Padua, as early as 1470. He is the most noted, with best reason, of all the Vicentines. It is thought that he studied under, or was influenced by, Carpaccio and Bellini, and also by Mantegna, to whom, however, he probably owes less than has been generally supposed. As a colourist Montagna stands high; his palette was rich if rather dark, with full, bright, clear tones, and his pictures have, as has been noted, a “ gem- like ” effect in their shimmering brilliance of col- our. His figures often have a noble expressive- ness, and at times he achieves an almost Man- i 24 Xfbe Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabemi? tegnesque grandeur of form and composition; his treatment of drapery is simple and unusually free from intricate, unimportant folds; his landscape backgrounds show poetic fancy and originality, though overminute in detail. His earlier pictures have far more traces of archaisms than his later, and he seems to have gained greatly from his con- tact with the famous Venetians of his day. Toward the end, his figures grow leaner, more angular, and harder. Of this class are the two in the Academy, both of which are in this room. They were painted for the Church of S. Rocco in Vicenza. The Madonna and Child with St. Jerome and St. Sebastian has figures of almost life-size. The Madonna is seated on a throne of Romanesque design inlaid with rich marbles, placed in the cen- tre between two arches forming the background of a portico, or loggia, also inlaid with coloured designs on a gold ground. She sits in full face, dressed in the Venetian costume of the time, her dress red with gold-embroidered borders, her corsage light, and mantle dark green. Her head is bent gracefully a little toward her left shoulder, her eyes turned to her right, and she has a contem- plative sweetness of expression joined to much dignity of carriage. Supported by her hand and arm, the nude baby Christ stands on her right knee. His figure is carefully and well drawn, but his IRoom ID, — Sala bet Beiltntant 125 position is unchildlike in its swing and poise. At the left of the picture, bound by his hands to a column, and pierced by his arrows of martyrdom, is St. Sebastian, nude save for the cloth about his loins. His body is almost in profile, his face, lifted, gazing heavenward, is turned three-quarters to the spectator. It is a splendidly modelled head and of an elevated type. On the right is St. Jerome, an old, white-bearded man, heavily robed and bearing a large, closed volume. He is look- ing out of the picture. The anatomy here is cor- rect, draperies well and flowingly treated. Sebas- tian is the best modelled and most interesting figure. Jesus between St. Roch and St. Sebastian is a large, square picture. Jesus, nude except for his loin-cloth, stands in the centre of the composition, displaying his wounds. St. Sebastian is at the left, arrow-pierced, as usual. St. Roch is at the right, in green tunic, red mantle, brown boots with yellow tops, his staff on his left shoulder, his hat on his back. Both saints have hands met prayerwise, adoring the Saviour. Behind Jesus is a red drapery, and in the background is a wall of coloured marbles. The two nude figures are capitally modelled and constructed. As a composition the introduction of the gaily dressed figure of St. Roch gives the scene a curiously one-sided appearance. 126 Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Hcabent# A very quaint work by Lazzaro Sebastian, called Bastiani, is not without some charm and feeling, and with a certain decorative quality in the plac- ing and arrangement of the curious composition. It is a round-topped panel, the upper part pretty well fifled by the branches and leaves of a flower- ing tree, in the midst of which sits St. Anthony of Padua. His seat is a board fastened across the upper limbs, his footstool the crotch of the tree made by the lower and bigger branches. He is in full face, and his right hand is lifted as if he were expounding with emphasis something from the book which, now closed, he holds upright on his left knee. The trunk of the tree divides the panel into two' even parts. On the left, sitting on a low stone coping, is a cardinal, looking up to the saint in the tree, his right hand lifted. On the right, St. Bonaventura is reading from a large book. The background is of low-lying hills. The careful workmanship of the leaves, the delicate attention to detail, and the curious archaic attributes are reminiscent, perhaps, of Andrea Vivarini. There are three pictures by Carpaccio' in this room, none equal to his Ursula series or to his great Presentation, only one indeed even approach- ing the heights he reached in those. This is the Meeting of Joachim and Anna, which has been both praised and condemned by the critics. The IRoom ID. — Sala &ei BelUntani 127 drapery of the figures is undoubtedly heavy, clumsy, and overvoluminous ; the landscape background, with its carefully indicated detail, shows traces of the early school, and as a composition there is little connection between the four figures. Nevertheless, it is also' true, as others have eagerly noted, that the faces of the four saints are rarely pure and radiant, the execution of the hands remarkably ex- cellent, with both pathos and beauty in the greet- ing of the two' clasping each other so tenderly. In the foreground, in the centre, stands Joachim,, with his arms about Anna. They have just met, and while her head is bowed almost to his shoulder, his is bent toward her, deepest interest and affection showing in every feature. The two are clad in the bright colours Carpaccio' loved, but there is noth- ing garish or hard in his juxtaposition of varying shades. Joachim’s robe is green, his tunic red, his heavy cloak gray, embroidered with gold. Under Anna’s tremendously heavy, full, red mantle is seen a blue dress with yellow sleeves. At the right, near her, stands Ursula with her martyr’s palm and a tall banner. She is clad in gown of blue, a yellow underskirt, and a rose-toned mantle. On her golden hair is a crown, and she stands in a contemplation that has apparently nothing in con- nection with this meeting between the Virgin’s parents. Her face is pale and earnest, her whole 128 zbc Brt of tbe IDentce BcaDem# expression one of suffering gentleness. St. Louis of France, who* stands in profile at the other side of the principal group, is a sturdy, full-chested, beardless youth in a purple robe, a mantle of blue and gold brocade, and an ermine cape. In his right hand he holds his sceptre. If there is a slight woodenness in his figure, his face, at least, is more nearly worthy of the man who painted the Presentation. The panel was taken from S. Francesco in Treviso. The Crucifixion of a Thousand Christians on Mt. Ararat is entirely unworthy of the painter whose name signs it. A lunette in this room, called the Transfigura- tion, is generally supposed tO' be by Pier Maria Pennacchi, though the new catalogue of the Acad- emy ascribes it to his brother Girolamo*. It is painted in tempera, and was a part of an altar- piece no longer in existence, which was executed for the Church of S. Margarita of Treviso*. The influence of Squarcione can be felt in the rigidity of the three figures and in the angularity of the folds of the voluminous draperies. Jesus, in a heavy white tunic and mantle, stands in the centre in full face, his hands lifted in blessing. He is on a rocky mound supposed to represent Mt. Tabor. On a slightly lower level, adoring him, are Moses and Elias. Moses is at his left, in a red robe, dark IRoom ID. — Sala 3Belliniant 129 yellow mantle, and turban wound about his head. On the Saviour’s right is Elias, dressed in red and gray, with a yellow turban. The robes of the two are flying as if caught in a high wind. The whole picture is coarsely executed. There is some at- tempt at characterization in the faces, but it is not highly successful. Pier Maria Pennacchi, born in Treviso in 1464, studied with Bellini, and in his early pictures shows the influence of Squarcione. Some of these are so angular and rude in drapery that they have been given to German masters. His later works are, however, very Bellinesque. Christ Before the Doctors, in this room, usually given to Girolamo, the nephew of Pier Maria, is in the new catalogue ascribed to Pennacchi the Elder. Girolamo, besides being a painter, was at one time architect for Henry VIII. The picture just mentioned shows a decided technical advance over the lunette of the Transfiguration, both in its treatment of form and drapery, but especially in its compositional construction. On a high marble seat, or throne, within an arched recess, sits the boy Christ, in full face, one hand resting on his knee, the other raised, pointing heavenward. He is looking downward to the doc- tors who are clustered about the base of the throne. There are eight of these, four on each side, and i 3° Ube Hrt o t the Venice Bcabent£ their gestures and movements indicate with great spirit the intensity of their questions. Farther forward, on each side of the columns supporting the arch of the recess, are two saints of the Roman Church, on the right Augustine and Ambrose, on the left Jerome and Gregory. They, too, are lis- tening to the discussion, thus making the whole composition more homogeneous. The Supper at Emmaus in this room, by Marco Marziale, shows clearly the painter’s affinity with the German school. It has little to recommend it except its conscientious attention to detail and a portraitlike quality in all the heads save that of Jesus. The table is set in a low-raftered room, hardly large enough for the company. Opposite the spectator sits Jesus, his perfectly inane, flat face far less interesting than any one of the earnest, intent countenances of the two men at either end, the host at the right, or even the Ethiopian stand- ing beside him. The elaborate working out of the pattern on the hanging against the walls, the bro- cade of the host’s, the stripes of the negro’s cos- tumes, the many folds of robes, cloth, and curtains, make the picture interesting as an example of what German influence on the Italian mind can do in art. But it is far below the level of the ordinary attainments of the Venetian painters of Marziale’s day. IRoom It)* — Sala bet JBelltntant 13* Scarcely anything is known of this Marco Mar- ziale except that he lived in Venice toward the beginning of the sixteenth century, and, as is evi- dent from this one work, that he was largely influenced by German art canons. Whether he and Marco Bello, whose Madonna and Child with St. John is also in this room, are the same, is not definitely settled, though many critics incline to that belief. Works by Marco Bello are extremely rare in any collection. It is thought that he was a follower of Giovanni Bellini, and his best work is the Presentation at Rovigo, which is only a copy of that by Bellini at Castle Howard. The one canvas in this room, the Madonna and Child, is feebly executed, with little to recommend it ex- cept a certain harmony of colour. Basaiti has several works here, the most noted, perhaps, being the Scene at Gethsemane. Jesus and his disciples are shown to the observer through a Roman archway which forms the sides and upper part of the composition. In front, on each side of the arch, stand two> saints, on the right St. Dominick and St. Mark, only the upper part of the latter being visible; on the left, St. Francis, read- ing, and behind him St. Louis of Toulouse, whose head alone can be seen. They are standing on a tiled flooring, arid over their heads swings an altar- lamp. Beyond, through the arch, is a rocky mount. 132 Ube Brt of tbe Denice Bcabem# At the base lie the three sleeping disciples, ar- ranged in a pyramidal grouping, with one stretched out flat in front on his back, the two others behind him half-sitting, half-lying. Above, on a project- ing ledge, Jesus kneels, an ill-constructed, unim- pressive figure. At his right grows a scraggy, leafless tree. Above is an angel, flying with ex- tended arms. In the distance castles mass against the sky, and on the road to the mount come the betrayer and his crowd. The best parts of this composition are the figures of the saints without the arch. They are carefully if rather rigidly drawn, and have a reality and actual personality that perhaps only Bellini and Carpaccio could, at that day, have surpassed. St. George and the Dragon, by the same painter, has little of the power or beauty or poetry of Man- tegna’s St. George, but, like the saints in the Geth- semane scene, it has a certain rude naturalness, that, joined to the conscientious rendering of de- tail, makes it of real interest, and invests even its archaism with an air of plausibility. A rather fat and cotton-woolly white horse, but still rearing on his hind legs with considerable action, is slightly back of a dragon which is stretched out across the foreground. It is a regu- lar fairy-story dragon with its long, twisted, scaly tail, backbone rising in sharp points, wicked claws, IRoom It). — Sala bet 36 ellmtant 133 wings near its griffin head. St. George, almost in profile, holds his horse firmly in his left hand, his sword lifted high in his right. He is in full ar- mour except for his head, which is bare, his long, loose, parted hair adding to the youthfulness of his face. It is a rather immobile face, expressing no particular emotion of any kind. At the right, clasping a tree, is the rescued princess, in dress and type of face quite of Basaiti’s time and city. Fill- ing the middle distance, somewhat too near for perspective accuracy, are an arched bridge, castel- lated hills and towers, and beyond, high broken mountains. As usual, Basaiti’s overinsistence upon the details of his landscape backgrounds brings them too prominently into his composition. Benedetto Diana, who has several works in this room, was born toward the middle of the fifteenth century, and died, probably, about 1525. He is known principally as an assistant to Carpaccio and Mansueti while working, in S. Giovanni Evan- gelista, in which place he painted the picture now in the Academy, called the Brethren Distributing Alms, a picture with not one scrap of its original surface left. Diana was also the fellow worker with Lazzaro Bastiani on the standards for the Piazza S. Marco. Crowe and Cavalcaselle say of him that “ his forms are weighty and more coarsely materialistic than Carpaccio’s or Man- i34 Tlbe Brt of tbe Denice Bcabent^ sueti’s; his draperies are muffled, and of the tex- ture of blankets; his touch heavy and fluid like that of Savoldo.” He displays in his tempera work “ a chocolate colour, full of vulgar accent and exaggeration in the outlines of limbs and body, boldly incorrect in drawing, and broken in dra- pery, with a coarse wildness pervading the features and a hard, raw touch.” In his oil works, as seen in the half-length Madonnas and saints in the Academy, he has some of the same effects, added to which are “ dull, horny, and high surface tones.” Curiously enough, while his earlier work shows marked Squarcionesque attributes, his later has not infrequently been taken for Catena's. It is to this latter painter that Diana's Madonna and Child with Sts. Jerome and John the Baptist, in Room 5, was formerly ascribed. They are all half-length figures, behind them a landscape back- ground with low-lying hills. The Virgin is sitting in the centre, turned three-quarters to the left, draped in a mantle covering head, shoulders, and arms. At the right is St. Jerome, also heavily draped, head and all, holding an open book. At the left is St. John, hair and beard wild and ragged, eyes lifted skyward. Certainly St. John is portrayed with vigour and intensity, and Jerome does not lack character. But they are far from the spontaneous, natural IRoom ID* — Sala fcei Bclltniant 135 creations of Bellini, nor have they the unstudied simplicity of Carpaccio. The head of the Madonna is commonplace, though it has a primitive dignity of mien. The Virgin with Four Saints, according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, shows strongly the influ- ence of Squarcione in the heavy forms and angular types. On the other hand, Burchardt in his “ Cice- rone ” says that it is a picture remarkable for the earnestness of expression, plastic character of the figures, and freshness of colour. The Madonna, dressed in a lilac robe and blue mantle lined with yellow, is shown seated, in full face, on a throne against a green background. The baby Jesus, on her left knee, is looking toward the right at St. Justina, who, in a red robe and green mantle and a head-wrap of gray and white, holds in her right hand the handle of a poignard which is thrust into her breast. In front, in the foreground, with her vase of ointment, is Mary Magdalen, dressed in a blue robe, mantle of rose colour, and head-dress of blue and white. At the left are St. Jerome, as cardinal, reading, and St. Benedict, or Bernard, in a white surplice and richly decorated dalmatic, holding his cross. A guinea-hen, a trunk of a tree, and two pieces of wood are in front, with two placards attached to one of the pieces of wood, bearing Benedetto’s 136 Hhe Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabents name and those for whom the picture was painted. Of the four pictures by Bissolo, in this room, the Coronation of St. Catherine is the largest, and generally considered his best example. The figures are life-size, and Eastlake remarks that in general design they recall certain characteristics of the school of Florence. A large part of the picture is devoted to the landscape background, which has a luminous, sympathetic quality about it. In the centre, Catherine, in the white robes of a nun, kneels in profile, her hands crossed on her breast. Jesus stands before her, lifting the crown of thorns from her head, preparatory to replacing it with the golden one which he holds in his left hand. He is dressed in a curiously inharmonious combination of peacock blue and crimson. At his left stands Peter, in a gray robe and lilac mantle, carrying his key of office and a book, and at the right are Sts. Paul and James. Back of Catherine kneels Mary Magdalen, dressed in a rose-toned robe and a green mantle, her hands joined in prayer. The angel leading the little Tobias with his fish is at the left again. Above, in the sky, surrounded by cherubs, is the Almighty, shown, as usual, only to the waist, His arms outstretched in blessing. This has been greatly retouched, but it has some- tRoom ID* — Sala bet Beiltntant 137 thing of the feeling of devotion and calm religious fervour characteristic of the early Bellinesque school. The Dead Body of Jesus with Two Angels is weakly ineffective and badly drawn. The body of the crucified one is half-sitting on a board lying across his sepulchre, half-leaning against the angel standing behind him, his legs still in the coffinlike tomb. At the other side is the other angel, lifting one of the Saviour’s arms. There is little or no weight expressed in the supposedly inert body, and no appreciable pressure on the angel upholding it. The poor drawing and construction of the figures are not atoned for by a certain insipid sweetness in the expression of the angel faces, nor even by a feeling of tender piety that envelops the whole scene. The Presentation in the Temple and the Virgin and Child with Saints have figures of half-length, as is so often the case with Bellini. In both pic- tures the Madonna’s face is portrayed with much refinement and sweetness of expression, and, in the latter, the babe is drawn with great grace and charm. In this one, too, a young girl, at the left of the Madonna, holding a basket with two doves, is even lovelier and more attractive than the Vir- gin. She has a round, girlish face that is full of a tender light not often found in later Venetian 138 Uhe Hr! of tbe Venice Bcabemp works. Simeon, too, is an earnest, interesting type, with rugged, severely cut features. The painter of these, Pier Francesco Bissolo, is said to have been born in Treviso, from which place he went to Venice, where he worked under Bellini. He acquired great facility in imitating his master, and, undoubtedly, finished many of his pictures. Some of his own works have, indeed, passed for those of Bellini. Crowe and Caval- caselle say of him that “ he was of a soft and tender fibre, like Sassoferrato, very careful and conscientious, and, amongst Venetians, a sort of Spagna. ... he was apparently affected by the ex- ample of Catena ; and the first specimens of his industry are akin to Vincenzo’s in the small char- acter of the personages and a hard, high texture of colour. The tones of flesh are dry and empty, yet clouded so as to lose precision. The landscape is sharp in tint, yet undefined in contours.” Before the end of his career, Bissolo shows cer- tain Giorgionesque and Palmesque traits in his works. At times he takes a composition of Bellini, adds a figure or two, or changes the relative posi- tions of one or another, much to the detriment of its compositional integrity, and signs it frankly with his own name, quite as if such execution was the usual and honourable custom of artists! Little is known of another painter represented IRoorn ID* — Sala bet SelUntanl 139 in this room, Rocco' Marconi, who is called a pupil of both Bellini and Palma Vecchio 1 , except that he was born in Treviso and that he worked at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. He is especially noted for his beautiful, transparent colour, which has been praised as be- ing at times almost more beautiful than Giorgione’s. At his best he was capable of really noble expres- sion and of fine feeling, though frequently his canvases were overcrowded with figures and showed an almost primitive method of composition, and his types were weak and ineffective. The new catalogue of the Academy gives him only one of the three pictures that have always been attributed to him, — the unimportant canvas of Jesus between Two Saints. The Woman Taken in Adultery, Professor Pietro Paoletti di Oswaldo claims to be a copy, and says that the famous Descent from the Cross was probably only com- pleted by Marconi. Berenson, Lafenestre, and most modern critics, however, still consider him to be the author of all three. Of these three, the Descent from the Cross is by far the best. It is a large picture, which orig- inally had an arched top, and it now measures about eleven feet high by eight wide. A tall wooden cross fills the centre of the composition, and at its foot sits Mary, in full face, dressed in i4o Ufoe Brt of tfoe IDentce Bcafcem$ a greenish blue mantle, with a white linen head- veil. She supports the head of her crucified Son on her knees, his body lying stretched out on a white cloth embroidered in gold. At the right kneels Mary Magdalen, her arms outstretched, clad in a beautiful robe of rose figured with black and a green mantle, over which falls her fair hair. Joseph of Arimathea kneels at the left, his hands clasped, and behind him is a saint in nun’s garb, and opposite, a monk. Back of this group are seen two' rabbits in the underbrush, and, on a roadway running along a high cliff, men in Oriental cos- tume. In the distance is a village on the banks of a river, with hills massing high on either side. This is by far the most effective and the most affecting of all Marconi’s works. The Madonna’s face is pretty rather than noble, the Magdalen’s grief, as usual with even greater painters, some- what theatric, though she is marvellously beau- tiful. The figure of Christ is splendidly drawn and modelled, and has a serene, calm dignity in death that has not been too many times surpassed by any of the men of the Renaissance. The scheme of colouring throughout is replete with a softened richness of harmony that makes the whole picture a veritable gem of the Venetian school. The fig- ures are life-size. CHAPTER VIII. ROOM III. SALA SCUOLE VARIE ITALIAN E In Room 3 there is an elaborate frieze, most of the panels of which were painted for the Scuola Grande of S. Giovanni Evangelista by Titian. Four of these represent the symbols of the Evan- gelists, and fifteen smaller ones hold angels and carved heads. Forming part of the same frieze are some paintings on canvas, depicting the Tables of Law, and another with the head of an angel. These are works of the last century. In this room the Venetian school gives place to examples of the art of the Renaissance from other parts of Italy. The earliest painter here repre- sented is Gentile da Fabriano, the master of Jacopo Bellini, godfather of Gentile Bellini, and thus, in a way, the founder of the entire Venetian school of painting. His real name was Gentile di Niccolo di Gio- vanni Massi. He was born between 1360 and 1370, probably in the Umbrian town of Fabri- ano. It has been supposed that he studied with i42 TIbe art of tbe IDentce Hcabemy Allegretto Nuzi, though, if Nuzi died in 1365, as has also been claimed, it is hardly possible that Gentile could have been his pupil unless born ear- lier than the date usually assigned. It has also been said that he may have had some instruction from Ottavanio Nelli, a painter whose style re- calls Allegretto’s. But he went far ahead of him if that is true. Not much is fully ascertained about Gentile’s life. His first important work, so far as known, was decorating a chapel about 1419, per- haps, for Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Brescia and Bergamo. After that he removed to Venice, where, along with other works, assisted by the Veronese Pisanello, he helped decorate the hall of the Ducal Palace, with scenes from the life of Barbarossa. Everything of this period has perished. As early as 1422 he settled in Florence, and in 1423 the picture by which he is most generally known, the Adoration of the Kings, now in the Accademia in that city, was painted. Gentile was the first of the Umbrians to achieve greatness, and not for a generation after his death did Umbria produce any one equal to him. Beren- son aptly says of Fabriano, that “ he devoted his life to recording the mediaeval idea of terrestrial happiness, . . . when the actuality, of which it was the enchanting refraction, was just about to fade into the past.” Sala Scuole IDarte ftaltane 143 Fabriano loved the glitter and solidity of highly raised gold embossing. He built out his frame- work of throne or dais or chair with actual lumps and ridges of the shining stuff, and scattered it broadcast over gown and veil and robes, put- ting exquisite workmanship into the brocades and borders, and lining and counterlining his golden aureoles with “ much fine gold,” throwing flowers and faces full of smiling pleasure everywhere. That his gay joyousness had foundation of solid ability, and, for his time, unusual and real knowledge, the descendants of his art prove. Without Fabriano, who can tell what the art of Venice would have been? His Madonna and Child, in Room 3, shows the Mother seated, a half-length figure. Her robe is very elaborately brocaded in black and gold, and she wears a white linen head-covering. Over the baby’s body is a gauzy white veil, one end of which his mother is lifting. In the nimbus about her head are the words of the Annunciation in golden, mediaeval letters. The background is gold, and on it are painted angels who guard the Holy Pair. The horns of the moon show at the base of the picture, the moon being one of the symbols of the Virgin. If this actually is by Gentile da Fabriano, for its attribution has been doubted, it is difficult to' judge as to what was its original i44 XTbe Hrt of tbe Venice Bcabems estate, so greatly has it been repainted. The pig- ment in places is tremendously thick, and his sig- nature is generally considered to be a modem addition. Younger than Gentile da Fabriano, somewhat younger, probably, than Jacopo Bellini, was Piero della Francesco, though the year of his birth is not yet definitely settled. It has been given as early as 1398, and even later than 1410. His full name was Piero di Benedetto dei Franceschi; and he was born at Borgo San Sepolcro-, between Arezzo and Urbino. His death occurred, it is stated, in the same year that Columbus discovered America. Piero studied with Domenico Veneziano, who was no Venetian, whose works, on the con- trary, show the influence of Florence and Dona- tello more than all else. In 1451 Piero was summoned to Rimini by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. This last named villain was then thinking of rebuilding the Cathedral of San Fran- cesco from designs by Leo Battista Alberti. Piero must have been doubly glad to go to Mala- testa’s court, for, in the century before, Carlo and Galeotto Malatesta had guaranteed the little city of San Sepolcro the preservation of its in- dependence, and without their protection it most likely would have been annexed by Florence long before its ultimate seizure in 1441. It is supposed Sala Scuoie Dade fftaltane 14 s that Piero was called to Rome by Nicholas V., where, according to Vasari, he executed some frescoes which have entirely perished. This de- struction was due, it is said, to Julius II., who had the rooms holding them entirely redecorated. He painted in oils and did much toward bring- ing that medium into rriore universal and trust- worthy vogue. “ He painted his lights with clear colour, using the same tint somewhat darkened for the shadows. The medium tints are always cool and reticent, and the flesh-tones warmed with a due amount of colour. The delicacy of chiaros- curo which he achieved was largely the result of fine and transparent glazings, and few painters in any age have excelled him in the faculty of illu- mination of flesh-tints.” His colouring, if quiet, is harmonious, his chia- roscuro shows both knowledge and considerable in- vention. He does not focus his light on one part of his picture, but distributes it in the various planes, showing careful study of every field. His treatment of architectural forms and backgrounds is worthy of the man whose treatise on perspective was, perhaps, the first thing of its kind to make popular the science, which, up to then, was almost untaught. But he was something more than an admirable workman. In all his compositions there is an individuality, a real power, that compels ad- 146 tlbe Brt of tbe Venice Hcabem^ miration, even when one objects to the lack of beauty in most of his works. It is the character of the figures in his paintings that gives Piero such a high place in the annals of art. Without ever obtruding his own personality, he succeeds in creat- ing living, real human beings, in whom can be felt the complexity or simplicity of their natures almost as truly as if the people themselves were before you. He had an objective way of painting portraits that has, perhaps, never been excelled. Impersonality, says Mr. Berenson, is “ his most distinguishing virtue, — one which he shares with only two other artists : the one nameless, who carved the pediments of the Parthenon, and the other, Velasquez, who painted without ever be- traying an emotion.” His picture, in Room 3 in the Academy, is prob- ably an early work, so> considered from the uneven drawing in the face and in a crudeness in colour and composition. It represents St. Jerome seated on a stone bench, dressed in a sleeveless, belted shirt that leaves his breast and his legs, from the knees down, bare. He holds an open book on his lap, and seems to be expounding its contents to the man kneeling at the right of the picture, fac- ing the saint. This figure, clad in a monk’s garb, is in profile, with hands met prayerwise, his regard strictly on the aged saint. It has been said that Sala Scuole IDarte ftaUane *47 this monk represented Girolamo, son of Carlo Malatesta of Sogliano. Back of the two is a hilly country dotted with towns and towers, trees and rivers. It is not Piero at his greatest expression, but there is already more than a hint of that absolute frankness of regard, that unbiassed view, which gave to all his works that impersonality so often noticed and not less often admired. There is a Madonna and Child with St. Joseph and St. Catherine in this room, by Jacopo Raibolini, son and pupil of the celebrated Francesco called 11 Francia. Jacopo, or Giacomo, as he is also titled, was born in the latter part of the fifteenth century. He never equalled his father, but his works have some of the delicacy and charm, with the light, clear, but not brilliant flesh-tones characteristic of the older man. The picture here is small in size, about two feet wide by two and a half high, with figures two- thirds life-size. The Virgin is auburn-haired, dressed in a crimson robe and a light indigo blue mantle lined with sage green. This falls from her head, while across her forehead is a thin white veil. She is holding upright on a pedestal in front of her the baby Christ, who is reaching out a wreath to St. Catherine, kneeling before them. At the left and back is St. Joseph. The distance is a land- 148 IXbe Hrt of tbe Venice Bcabems scape. The Virgin’s face is weak though rather sweet in expression, the Child graceful and really lovely in outline. As a whole, the picture has some undeniable charm in treatment and conception, but, compared with the productions of the Venetians of the same time, it seems thin and sadly ineffectual in colour. The canvas called Homer is the only example of Caravaggio in the Academy. It represents the aged bard standing facing three-quarters to the left, playing a violin. He is dressed in a rough great- coat of blue, the thick gray fur collar coming close about his neck, opening only to show the kerchief tied under his gray beard. The eyes are closed, the laurel-crowned head lifted, as if listening to his own music. Caravaggio has thrown deep shadows over and behind him. Only the wrinkled forehead, the sightless eyes, the beard and kerchief, the thumb and finger of the hand on the strings, come into full light. The effect of the chiaroscuro is almost startling. It is as if a vision of yesterday were for a moment swept out of the misty shadows of the past, into the light of the present. True to his own ideal, Caravaggio has not made the immortal poet beautiful. The worn, lined face is rugged, rather than handsome. It is a real, a living man portrayed, but a man in whose blind face are felt the concentration of passionate force HOMER By Caravaggio Sala Scuole IDarte ftaltane 149 and an indescribable upliftedness. Not less won- derful are the hands, half-lost in the shadow, but showing the fine curves, the tense nerves, of the hand of genius. The picture, above all, impresses one as a portrait. So living, so actual is it that it seems as if Caravaggio must have drawn it from the living bard himself. And, while he has de- parted far from the ideal type of the ineffable Homer, he has succeeded in portraying something of the inner power, the inspiration, the undying force of a great creator. The canvas, though not one of his most cele- brated, is characteristic enough to give some just idea of the man who was the chief master of the so-called naturalistic a school of art in sharp hos- tility to that of the eclectics, especially as that school was represented by the Caracci. The prin- cipal aim of the naturalisti was to- represent actual nature, life as it is rather than ideal conceptions of what it might or should be. This predilection brought them at times to gross exaggeration of gesture, attitude, and expression. Power, not beauty, was their watchword. At their best, they could portray scenes with a pathos, an intensity, a directness of appeal, entirely impossible to the tamer eclectics. At their worst, they were led into coarseness, vulgarity, and melodrama. Their style was hardly suitable for religious subjects, and i s° XTbe Hrt of tbe Dentce Hcabem^ some of Caravaggio’s works were actually torn down from the altars they adorned. His famous Entombment, in the Vatican, has been said to re- semble more nearly the funeral of a gipsy chief than that of the Lord Jesus. Yet who else has with so overpowering convincingness displayed the grief of the Mother as he in that very scene? Wherever strong passion can be indicated or wild- est climax suggested, there Caravaggio is at his height. It was in the effort to achieve such ex- traordinary effects that he became the past master he was in the treatment of chiaroscuro. His pier- cing lights, dense shadows, and pitchy backgrounds were the most essential tools for securing dramatic expression. Exaggerator as he was, coarse as he showed himself in innumerable instances, Cara- vaggio, who came at a time when the light of the great Renaissance was dying into a feeble flicker, proved himself a painter of virility, of intense pas- sion of ideas, and, as has been said, in him was seen something of that “ powerful nature, which, in spite of all inferiority, claims a certain kindred with that of Michelangelo himself.” His full name was Michelangelo Amerighi, Caravaggio being the name of the town which, in 1569, gave him birth. The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, in this same room, is the work of a man strongly influenced Sala Scuole Darte Itaitane 151 by Caravaggio, Jusepe Ribera, a Spaniard, born in 1588. So long did he live and work in Italy, however, that he has come to be regarded as a product of the Italian rather than of the Spanish school. In the country of his adoption he was called Lo Spagnoletto', and many are the stories told of his lawlessness and his bitter enmity to painters whom he feared might rival him. Ad- miring Caravaggio’s works extravagantly as he did, one of his own most noticeable if more or less superficial attributes was the intensity of his shad- ows. In his treatment of chiaroscuro he, too, showed a vivid appreciation of the dramatic value of sharply contrasted light and shade, and, though this very thing sometimes made his work smack of the melodramatic, in many cases he reaches a high plane of expression. His colouring is at times cold and forced, at others has a golden brilliancy of tone. Mr. Ricketts says of him, that “ on the whole one may even be astonished that, with the blackness of his shadows, the plastic over- emphasis of his scheme of relief, his pictures should be so rich, or so satisfying. . . . He speaks the language of Caravaggio' more freshly and with greater sincerity.” The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew is a sub- ject he treated more than once. In fact, he seemed to have a special fondness for showing the nude 152 XTbe Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabems figures of old men drawn on the rack, thrust into walled-up rooms, or suffering other agonies of martyrdom. Such pictures gave him a chance to display his knowledge of the human figure and to employ to great advantage his schemes of forced lighting. This one here does not nearly equal the great Bartholomew in the Prado, but it is a char- acteristic example of the horrible which Ribera loved to paint. The figures are a little over half-length. The aged saint, nude, except for a loin-cloth, is in the centre, in full face, brought squarely against a huge tree-trunk behind him. His left wrist is tied to a stump of an old branch, while an executioner at his other side is pulling on the cord about his right wrist, stretching his arm in the process above his head and binding it to the tree. On the right, the second servant of torture is slicing off the skin and upper flesh of his leg, leaving the muscles exposed, under a rain of blood-drops. Both ex- ecutioners are about their fiendish task with a dogged determination to fulfil their orders that does not, nevertheless, prevent the one on the right, at least, from showing some real feeling of horror at the performance. The modelling and construction of these two figures are as masterly as is the management of the light and shade which throws all the cruel Saia Scuole tDarie Italtane iS3 hands and arms into sharp light and sweeps into obscurity their bodies, here of so much less pictorial importance. Bartholomew’s entire body and head are in full brilliance. The agony of the eyes and half-open mouth, the shrinking of the muscles of the torso, are wonderfully expressed, — every stroke of Ribera’s brush evidently planned to in- crease the horror of the scene. Nothing of the dreadful is spared. Apparently, in spite of his long dwelling in Naples, that sun-kissed city, the gloom of the Spanish nature never wholly lifted its weight from Ribera’s spirit. CHAPTER IX. ROOM II. SALA DELL* ASSUNTA The Sala del 1’ Assunta might almost be called the Salon Carre of the Academy, for in it are placed a number of the greatest masterpieces of the Venetian school. Not the least of those is Giovanni Bellini’s altar- piece, the Madonna of San Giobbe, supposed to have been painted about 1488. In a domed recess, whose ornamentation is in designs of coloured marbles, sits the Madonna, on a high throne overlaid with delicate carving of scroll and conventionalized flower designs. She holds the Child on her knee, one hand appearing under his left arm, the other lifted as if in sur- prise or explanation. On the two steps at the foot of the throne-chair are three of the most delight- ful putti, tiny angelic musicians, that Bellini ever conceived. Two are on the lower step, the other immediately above and between them. On the right of the composition, within, or at the edge of the marble recess, are St. Sebastian, St. Dominick, 154 MADONNA OF SAN GIOBBE By Giovanni Bellini IRoont ll. — Sala bell' Bssunta 55 and St. Augustine. Opposite are St. Job, St. Francis, and John the Baptist. One of the first things that may strike the ob- server is the wonderful effect of space in this pic- ture. The top of the Madonna’s head hardly reaches the centre of the composition, and the saints do not stand as high, as her shoulder. There is, therefore, a tremendous space quite unfilled by figures, with nothing in it but the exquisitely indi- cated marble work of the throne and its chapel. Instead of seeming empty or badly filled, the sense of air and of distance in this upper portion of the scene adds immeasurably if inexpressibly to the devotional quality of the picture as a whole. There is something about it that suggests the benediction of the Father over his well-beloved. Of all the figures in this altar-piece, the Madonna is the least interesting. She has an immobility of expression that cannot be forgotten because of the sweetness of regard discernible in her level eyes. St. Dominick, in profile, with his irregular nose, firm, long-lipped mouth, tonsured head, and scholarly, refined hands, is a wonderfully real creation. Sebastian is a most beautiful nude fig- ure, the grace of his position and smoothness and suppleness of his limbs suggesting a Greek Nar- cissus. The expression on his handsome face, with the heavy curls that come down on to his shoulders, 156 Ube Brt ot tbe IDenice Bcabem$ is a mixture of smiling irony and gay self-satis- faction. He has, it is true, nothing about him to indicate either stamina or aptitude for the life of a martyr, and as for those arrows that are piercing him, — the painter was considerate enough to his beautiful creation to spare him more than two, — no one could believe that such a face could bear their torturing sharpness with so much insouciance! Almost as beautiful, but of far different character, is the St. Job. The domelike forehead, the deep- set eye, the lines about the mouth, all show the character of the indomitable saint. Of St. John, only the head in profile and one hand can be seen as he stands, back of St. Francis and St. Job, with the tip of his reed cross above his youthful head, covered with thick, tight curls. St. Francis, stand- ing in full face in his monk’s garb, is a rather portly personage, showing his pierced hands with a wobegone expression spread over a rather com- monplace face. The three child-musicians, at the foot of the throne, are lovely not only in face, grouping, and position, but the management of their drapery is a triumph of art. The folds that catch and reflect the light, the way the surfaces are broken by shadows cast by fold and shape of figure beneath — this is the very poetry of painted drapery. All three little figures are exquisite, but the one in the centre, on the higher step, with the IRoont 1 F 1 C — Sala Sell' Bssunta 157 big guitar coming across his chest and up over his chin, with the big eyes peering out so earnestly from under the wide forehead framed by the soft, full hair, is the most beautiful of all. As a composition, technically considered, the picture is not one of Bellini’s greatest works. The heads of the six saints are all too nearly on a line, and form too regular right angles with the Vir- gin’s head. Nevertheless, the work is a master- piece, and doubly wonderful when it is compared with almost all of its contemporary Venetian painting. It has been stated, with striking force, that in it are found all the elements that later in Giorgione were carried to such perfection of ex- pression. Particularly does the atmospheric qual- ity of it show Bellini to have evolved a new and greater phase in his art. Very unlike his Ursula series is Carpaccio’s Presentation, hanging near the San Giobbe Ma- donna. If not quite so golden in colour as the great Bellini, its brilliance and richness is far in excess of the rather monotonously brown-toned Ursula panels. In a chapel-like niche before an altar stand Simeon and his two assistants, facing Mary, who, bearing the Child, is accompanied by two grace- ful maiden attendants. Below these are seated is 8 Tlbe Hrt of tbe IDenice Hcabem^ three little musicians, the putti that Carpaccio, as well as Bellini, loved to paint. Very nearly in profile stands Mary, her ample drapery falling about her in folds, that, if a trifle sharp in some of their edges, have much grace of line and curve. Her dress is light crimson, her mantle blue, a white linen veil falling over the back of her head to her shoulders. The lines of her figure, as indicated by the fall of her drapery, are noble. She has an easy, unforced pose, quite in keeping with her calmly benignant face, which is singularly free from all suggestion of pettiness. The babe in her arms is one of Carpaccio’s most exquisite creations. The modelling of the supple, yielding flesh, the delicate gradations of tone, the baby tenderness of gesture as he places his tiny hand on his mother’s breast, the seraphic sweetness in his lovely little face, — everything is as perfect in execution as it was in conception, and one feels like agreeing with Ruskin when he cries that this is the most beautiful baby Christ in all Venetian art. Equally perfect, in their own way, are the two richly dressed companions of the Madonna. The one at the left, carrying the offering of doves, is in profile, the other, next to Mary, in almost full face. About them are a fragile bloom and a slen- derness of construction which seem to suggest the PRESENTATION By Carpaccio IRoom AIL — Sala Dell' Bssunta 159 Florentine rather than Venetian type of woman- hood. Never has Carpaccio portrayed more per- fect feminine loveliness. The grace of attitude and figure, the pure contour of forehead and cheek, the sweetness of expression, make these two maid- ens rare creations for even Carpaccio’s brush. Simeon, the High Priest, ' is no less splendidly conceived, in benignity of expression, nobleness of head, and reverence of manner. His stately figure, to be sure, is clad in robes of the Church of Rome, instead of those of Jewish ritual, but such anach- ronisms, common to nearly all the painters of the Renaissance, do not detract from the ethical, spiritual, or artistic value of the picture. The gorgeous purple and gold brocade cope which hangs from his shoulders, the ends upheld by the two younger priests, is a marvel of finest minia- turelike painting. The wide border of this priestly garment shows especially exquisite workmanship, with its simulation of most’ elaborately embroidered scenes from the Old Testament. Each one of these little pictures is a gem in itself. With the possible exception of the child Jesus, nothing in the whole altar-piece, however, quite equals in charm the entrancing little musicians on the steps below Mary and Simeon. Arrayed in bright, light-toned tunics and robes, the three “ celestial children,” as Sir Charles Eastlake called 160 zhc Htt of tbe IDentce Bcabem# them, sit on the steps below the impressive scene of the Presentation, each with his musical instru- ment, playing, it would seem, heaven’s own accom- paniment to that holy happening. The one on the left holds his flute to his lips, but he has not yet blown into it; his eyes are gazing far into the distance, as if thinking of what to play. At the other end of the lower step, the second little one sits holding his violin under his cheek, his bow suspended, his eyes lifted heavenward, his whole posture one of intense listening. Lovely as are these two, the one between them, a step higher, is still more captivating. With one leg thrown over the other, his big lute resting on it and coming up to his chin, the “ angioletto ” sits there playing away for dear life, his whole being absorbed in his task. The quaint way in which his tunic is wrapped about his crossed legs, the tip of the grace- ful head, the soft lips of the earnest mouth, the half-closed eyes, the tiny baby fingers moving with such exquisite curve and pressure on the strings, - — everything about this mite of a musician adds to its imperishable charm. It is one of the few things which, as Messrs. Blashfield and Hopkins say, have delighted connoisseur, dilettante, and artist alike, — and, it might be added, general public as well. Such dissecting of this wonderful altar-piece can, after all, convey slight idea of its intrinsic, un- IRoom m — Saia fceir Bssunta 161 translatable beauty. Its earnestness, its real piety, is as great a part of its charm as is its compo- sitional unity, its architectural majesty, its colour harmonies, or its beautiful faces and figures. The picture which gives its name to this room, Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin, was ordered, in 1516, for the Church of the, Frari, but it was not exhibited till 1518. It is stated that during its final process of completion some of the friars strongly objected to its acceptance, complaining that it was not worthy of the painter’s fame. But when it was finally uncovered in the great church, it was received with such acclaim that even the carping friars were convinced of its value. Too much cannot be said deploring its present unfortunate placing. What with its slight eleva- tion from the ground and the flood of light which pours over it in the gallery, Titian’s whole scheme in construction and colouring is rendered worse than useless. No man knew better than he how to adapt his means to the end in view. The Assunta was to go over a high altar in the semidarkness of a church. Thus, the colours, which the light of the Academy makes crude and overvivid, were there softened and dimmed. So, too, the lack of anatomical construction in some of the disciples about the tomb, a fault that has greatly excited the ire of critics, would at such a height and light not 1 62 XTbe Brt of tbe Venice Bcabemp only be indistinguishable, but were made actually necessary by the exigencies of the position. In other words, over the Frari altar the colours were lowered in key, the gestures less obtrusive, the drawing thoroughly adequate. With these facts firmly in mind, even those who have not the in- stinctive and involuntary admiration for the work that its intrinsic greatness must, it would seem, always evoke, can more nearly appreciate it at its true value. In shape the picture is a long, upright panel with arched top. By the very nature of the subject the composition is divided into three parts : the lower with the apostles, the central portion hold- ing the Madonna and the myriads of angels, and above the figure of God the Father with attendant seraphs. Only a monumental genius could ever have so arranged the light and colour and lines as to make of these three divisions one comprehen- sive, incontestable whole. But that is exactly what Titian accomplished, and even the garish light of the gallery cannot spoil his triumph, though it must have been infinitely greater when the picture was in its proper environment. Filling the lower part in the foreground are the apostles, grouped about the open tomb. Peter is sitting in the centre, the others standing, heads and hands lifted, bodies thrust forward, all in a very IRoom 1I1L — Sala bell* Hssunta 163 passion of wonder and adoration, gazing at the figure of their Lord’s Mother, she who from out the tomb beside them is being borne heavenward before their very eyes. Over this lower group Titian has cast deep shadows, the effect of which is to send the eye at once above to the shining, wondrous light from heaven. The reflection of this radiance streams over Mary, who, still not far over the disciples’ heads, is ever rising higher and higher, carried upward on the clouds with an irresistible force that, in its turn, compels the up- ward gaze of the spectator, till, in the midst of blinding glory, in the arch of the picture is seen the outstretched arms and beneficent face of the Father, waiting for his well-beloved. Swarming about Mary, lifting the clouds on which she stands, singing, playing, praising, clasping one another in an ecstasy of joy, are numberless baby angels, their little figures in every conceivable graceful position, sweeping far up like a garland on both sides of her till they have vanished in the golden ether above the Eternal. On each side of the Almighty, lying out partly covered with his drapery, is an angel, waiting with Him for the Madonna. The smaller one on the left holds aloft a wreath of leaves, the one on the right a golden crown, emblems, perhaps, of the living and eternal glories waiting for the Mother of Christ. 164 Ube Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabem^ Mary herself is a wonderfully conceived figure. Her flight upwards is extraordinarily indicated. Apparently Titian has simply painted a woman standing on the clouds, her red and blue drapery blown by the wind flying about her, her arms raised, her face lifted heavenward. Just such a position as many a painter has given many a pic- ture of ecstatic saint in prayer. Yet with these simplest means Titian has contrived to express a veritable flight through the ether. So marvellously does he indicate this motion that even as one looks instinctively the eye lifts to follow Mary skyward. Indeed, perhaps this is the most tremendous im- pression which the picture can make upon the spec- tator, this feeling of flight through the air, this overcoming of all the laws of gravitation by the might of far greater spiritual laws; this it is that, more than anything else, holds one spellbound, wait- ing breathlessly for the final disappearance of that majestic ascending figure. Tiziano Vecelli, like most of the school of Vene- tian painters, was not born in the city of the sea, but, in 1477, in Pieve, a town of Cadore, a hilly, rugged district in the Venetian Alps. At a very early age, however, he was sent to the capital to learn painting, and his first teacher, it has been said, was Sebastiano Zuccato, a mosaicist, with whom he stayed only a brief while. From him, IRoom lilh — ©ala bclV Bssunta 165 according to certain authors, he went to Gentile Bellini, who soon objected to the youth’s rapid and daring style of drawing. Whether this was the cause or not, before long he found his way to Giovanni Bellini, in whose studio he made the ac- quaintance of Giorgione and Palma Vecchio. Plere he laid the foundation of that art which, for its completeness, its unbroken fulness, its extent, and its quality, no Venetian painter, no painter of any country, ever equalled. Titian’s own family was an old house of some prominence in Cadore, and, from almost the be- ginning of his career until its end, his long life was largely spent in the service of duke, prince, king, and emperor, and among his friends were reckoned some of the greatest intellectual lights of the six- teenth century. He lived in princely style, and en- tertained royally, and, from his own as well as Aretino’s letters, it is easy to see that he was fond of the luxuries of living, of amusements, of gaiety, of the pleasures of the table, of music, of fair women. Yet in his life as well as in his work there is no more hint of excess, of debauchery, than there is of asceticism or pallid piety. Receiving from heaven for all his life, as Vasari says, nothing but “ favour and felicity,” Titian’s only trouble seemed to be in getting money from his noble and royal patrons for ordered work. So 166 ube Hrt of tbe Dentce Hcabemy great a sovereign as Charles V. was always far behind in his payments to his favourite painter, and prince and duke and noble were continually showering commissions upon him, for which they often never paid. At Titian’s death, Philip II. of Spain owed for fourteen important pictures “ and many others which I have forgotten,” as Titian reminded the Spanish sovereign in a note written when he was ninety-seven, and again two years later, shortly before his death. If he had difficulty in getting his just dues in money, he was at least given much honour and many titles by his great patrons. The stories of Emperor Charles’s admiration for him are well known, such as the one, for instance, telling how the ruler of the empire stooped to pick up the paint- er’s brush, saying to his astonished attendants that “ Titian was worthy to be served by Caesar.” And how, at another time, he insisted upon having the artist ride by his side at a ceremonial in Bologna, remarking to his courtiers, “ I can make as many lords as I wish, but God only can make a Titian.” Other substantial, if not monetary, proofs of his appreciation were not lacking, for he made Titian Count Palatine, Count of the Aulic Council, of the Lateran Palace, and of the Consistory. The man of Cadore was also made Knight of the Golden Spur, — honours no> painter before had ever at- IRoorn 1F1L — 5ala beir Bssunta 167 tained. So that, in spite of some financial diffi- culties, it is no wonder Vasari was greatly im- pressed with the worldly prosperity of the Vene- tian. Perhaps it is partly owing to the absence of Sturm und D\rang in Titian’s life that his art is so untroubled, so even in its greatness, so equable in its expression, so impressive without being dis- quieting, so grandly powerful with never a hint of hopelessness or despair. It is, perhaps, the sanity in his works that is their greatest marvel. Never does Titian lose control of himself, his subject, or his material. Always he is fully equal to the de- mand of whatever his brush essays. He may not show the virile impetuosity of Tintoretto; the poetic insight of Giorgione is, perhaps, mostly wanting; the mystery and witchery of Leonardo are not his; the subtle psychology of Lotto does not attract him; the passionate depths of Rem- brandt the Seer, his hqart probably never knew. And yet, his great Battle of Cadore, according to all accounts, was as full of fire, of dash, of riotous attack as ever Tintoret himself could have im- agined. Poetry, subtle charm, witchery, psycho- logic intensity, — are not one or all of these to be found in their perfection in his Sacred and Profane Love, in his Worship of Venus, in his Madonna of the Pesaro Family, in his Man with the Glove, in 1 68 Zhc Brt of tbe Venice Ecabems the gray-eyed portrait in Florence? And what depths are left unsounded in the Entombment of the Louvre ? Titian’s art was like a glorious harmony. He struck full, ringing chords where his brethren played but single-finger melodies. The very com- plexity of his achievement makes them, paradox- ically, less remarkable to the ordinary observer. The greatest colourist the world has ever seen, — that is the praise universally accorded the Venetian. But he was far greater than that makes him. When he chose, Michelangelo’s drawing was not more adequate; Raphael’s composition more inevitable; Leonardo’s chiaroscuro more telling. But through it all, it is the poise, the certainty, and the absolute completeness in everything he did that make his achievements so unapproachable, so mighty. Titian is all things to> all men, but, as Ruskin so ably said, he will never be so popular as less great men be- cause the very presence of certain other qualities will prevent the man of one idea from finding there his own idea supreme. What is generally considered Cima’s greatest masterpiece, the Virgin Enthroned with Six Saints, is also in this room. Under an open portico with Corinthian columns, on a marble throne, Mary is seated in full face, holding upright on her left knee the child Jesus. She is dressed in a red gown VIRGIN ENTHRONED WITH SIX SAINTS By Cima da Conegliano 'Room if. — Sala t>eir Bssunta 169 and blue mantle lined with yellow. O’n the lowest step of the throne are two little angel musicians, only less charming than the Bellini putti near by. At the left of the throne are St. George in armour leaning on his lance, his left hand on his sword, St. Nicholas of Bari in his churchly vestments, carry- / ing on a book the three purses, and St. Catherine, in rose-coloured robe with green mantle, her palm in her hand. At the right, in the foreground, is St. Sebastian, pierced by arrows, his hands bound behind him; next is St. Anthony, in a dark can- vas robe, leaning on a cane, from the handle of which swings a little bell; and in the background, opposite St. Catherine, St. Lucy, in a blue dress and red cloak, her palm of martyrdom also in her hand. The distance is a mountainous landscape, character- istic of Lima’s Friulian country. Under the arch of the portico in the sky are nine cherubim, making an angelic semicircle over the Madonna’s head. The colouring of this altar-piece is brilliant, clear, and fresh, the composition dignified, solid, and well-balanced, the figures of individual and well-contrasted types, and through it all a feeling of piety as unaffected, if of far less depth than in an altar-piece by Giovanni Bellini. The Madonna is a sober, thoughtful-faced woman, the Child is a chubby reality, and the two women saints have a placid if rather immobile beauty. Sebastian’s *7° Ube Brt of tbe tDenice Bcabent# nude body is carefully and excellently modelled, and if, as in most of Cima’s works, there is a cer- tain dryness felt in the handling, there are, too, much sincerity and acuteness of workmanship. The two putti, on the step below the throne, with vio- lin and guitar, are the most charming bits in the whole picture and are not unworthy to rank with the two by Bellini in the San Giobbe Madonna in this same room. Basaiti’s panel of the Calling of the Sons of Zebedee, though painted when Venetian art was already showing promise of its glorious flowering, strikes a primitive, archaic note, strangely in con- trast with the great altar-pieces so far considered in this room. Across the front of the composition stretches a huge, flat rock into the sea. Moored to it, in the im- mediate foreground, are two rowboats, their prows only in the picture. These are pushed hard and fast against the rock. From the one on the right all the sons of Zebedee have landed except the eldest, who is just about to step down from the bow seat. In front of him is the youngest, walking forward with his left hand extended, his right holding his cloak at his neck. The second son is already kneel- ing at Jesus’ feet. The Master stands with a dis- ciple on each side, almost in profile, facing the sons, with his hand lifted in blessing. Between the two IRoorn 11 K — Sala fceil' Hssunta 17* boats in front, a board projects out from the rock, and on it sits a small boy, nearly back to, watch- ing the scene. Peering out from the other side of the rock are the heads of a Turk and another gray-bearded man. Back of them, at the left, is a tall rock reaching up to the top of the picture, and at its base are hermits and shepherds with sheep, while along its side are seen entrances to the her- mits’ caves. In the middle distance curiously shaped boats are sailing on the sea, and back of this stretch of water rise castellated mountains, with towers, bridges, and fortifications at their base. These hills are snow-capped, drawn with a hard in- sistence upon outline and detail, — - the farthest houses on their slopes showing the windows care- fuly indicated, and the leaves of the trees can al- most be counted. This ignoring of the laws of atmospheric perspective is characteristic of Basaiti, especially in his earlier works. The figures are pretty well drawn and show considerable anima- tion and expression. With the Tintorettos in this room comes an en- tirely different art, one phase of which art, at least, is shown in these works at its very highest manifestation. Tintoretto has been called a great poet, a great thinker, a great illustrator, and a great painter. These three canvases show him pre- eminently as the painter. They each tell a story, i 7 2 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDenice Bcafcemp for Tintoretto’s slightest composition must always be dramatic; in each there is poetry, in each more original thought than a dozen lesser men would have used for twice the number of pictures. But above everything else they rank as paintings , pure and simple. It is the glory of their golden tone, the depth and warmth of their shadows, and the superb massing of the light and shade that place them among the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance. Of the three the Miracle of St. Mark has the widest fame. Most critics agree in calling it Tin- toretto’s masterpiece, though others have not placed it on a level with his Bacchus and Ariadne, the Crucifixion, or the Martyrdom of St. Agnes. But whether Tintoretto’s greatest achievement or not, it is beyond peradventure one of the greatest pic- tures ever painted. In it are a power, a rhythm, a passion of movement, and a golden brilliance of colour that have never been surpassed. No words can describe the irresistible, downward rush of that amazing figure in mid-air, or half-express the wonder of the lighting. Compared with the spontaneity of its chiaroscuro, most of Leonardo’s schemes of light and shade seem measured, cold, and academic; and neither Titian nor Correggio could have made the flesh of that prostrate slave of more golden warmth of tone or modelled it with firmer, IRoom n * — Sala bell' Bssunta 73 simpler brush. Only Tintoretto himself, again, could have imagined that wonder-struck crowd, or, having imagined, could so have thrown it upon the canvas. The story which the picture illustrates tells of a Christian slave, who, worshipping against his pagan master’s orders at the shrine of St. Mark, was condemned to torture. Bound and naked, he was taken to the public square, but before the tor- tures could be inflicted St. Mark himself appeared from the heavens, the bonds were miraculously loosened, the instruments of torture broken. It is this moment that Tintoretto chose for representa- tion. On the ground, in a tremendously foreshortened position with his head to the spectator, lies the naked slave, the cords and bands snapped in pieces about him, his own astonishment apparently pre- venting him from moving. At his head, kneeling over him with broken stave in his hand, still held aloft as if to drive the cruel barb into the slave’s eyes, is one of the executioners. Standing back to, on the other side is a second torturer. He is in Turkish costume, and the twist of his body, as he shows the split hammer to the judge, who is on a high seat at the right, is a magnificent rendering of tense action. The crowd of soldiers, citizens, Turks, and Christians makes a semicircle about the 174 XTbe Brt ot tbe tDentce Bcafcems slave, and dread, wonder, and amazement are mar- vellously delineated in pose, movement, and expres- sion. Curiously enough, not one among them seems to see anything but the slave with his miraculously freed bonds. St. Mark himself, who has fallen headlong from the sky, and who is at that instant poised directly over their heads, is wholly un- noticed, invisible evidently, to the pagans, obscured by the blinding light of the ether that surrounds him. This light streams out in rays, striking heads, arms, or shoulders of the gaping crowd, and drenching the whole upper part of the slave’s body with its golden tone. This glow of sun- lighted flesh is all the more extraordinary in its effect because of the warm, luminous shadows which are flung across the thighs and about the arms. One scarcely knows which is more splendid or alluring, the brilliance of reflected ray on mod- elled flesh, or the translucent depth of those shield- ing shades. Not less remarkable, both in lighting and construction, is St. Mark himself. Michel- angelo never put a figure into a more incredibly difficult foreshortened position nor constructed it with so little exaggeration of detail or movement. The solidity of the figure is perhaps its one anachro- nism. He is falling with the utmost weight of liv- ing flesh and bones. Nothing, apparently, can pre- vent his striking the heads of the bending spectators. MIRACLE OF ST. MARK By Tintoretto IRoorn HIL-Saia bell' Hssunta 17s And if he does strike, it will be with the driven force of a mighty figure thrown through illimitable space, crashing to splinters any obstacle in its path. In other words, he is not poised above this group: there is nothing to indicate a sense of floating in mid-air. He is actually coming down with the might and fury of a thunderbolt, with nothing to stop his headlong career. His head, one arm, and most of his body are in the same deep tones of shadow that rest across the slave. Only his warn- ing left arm, his legs from the knee down, and his flying robe that swirls about him have caught the brilliant glow that fills the heavens and sweeps over the square. Taken altogether, the thing that first holds one breathless in looking at this astonishing compo- sition is also' what affects one longest, — the golden tone and the iridescent splendour of its light. It has the warmth of a tropical noon, the intensity of the unclouded sun, and yet the softness, the caressing tenderness of midday shining through the stained glass of a Gothic window. In the other two* smaller Tintorets here, there is little of the rich, gemlike colour made by the gleaming silks and brocades and gay turbans of the crowd in the St. Mark. In fact, the Death of Abel and the Adam and Eve have been disparaged by critics because of the monochromatic colour 17 6 TTbe Hrt of tbe Venice Hcabem^ even of their flesh-tones. The shadows are called too 1 blackish brown, the lights too uniform in their gray creams. Compared with some of the greatest Titians, or with the most brilliant Palma Vecchios, or Bonifazios, or with many Tintorettos, this criti- cism will hold true. Yet it is probably the last thing that will occur to one seeing them for the first time. To such the marvellous chiaroscuro, with its golden light and its warmth of luminous shadow, seems no more lacking in colour than it does in the wonder of its dramatic quality. Similarly, it could be said, it is only by direct comparison with a pic- ture by Monet of the same subject that the beauty of one of Whistler’s Nocturnes of the Houses of Parliament is seen to rest rather in its tonal than colour harmonies. Yet, without such direct com- parison, who* could call those mysterious, haunting, blue-toned poems of Whistler, with their exquisite gradations of silver, blue, and gray, lacking in col- our? Thus it is with the Adam and Eve and the Death of Abel. So' poignant are they in expression, so telling in their superbly balanced masses of light and shade, so dramatic in their rendering, and, finally, so luminous in their tone that only the sternest critic is likely to see any deficiency in colour. The Death of Abel shows to its utmost Tin- toretto’s power of expressing intense and instan- taneous action. A mass of trees with deep, clus- DEATH OF ABEL By Tintoretto IRoom If.— Sala fcelP Hssunta 177 tered shadows makes the background for the two struggling figures. In front, thrown evidently with great suddenness, is Abel, back to, feet and arms wildly striking and clutching ground and air in his attempt to save himself. Over him kneels Cain, one hand seizing his brother’s neck, the other raised above with the poignard ready for the fatal plunge. His figure, except for the heaving muscles of the mighty shoulders, is mostly submerged in the dark shadows that lurk beneath the trees. Abel’s body is pushed farther out into the light, the terror and fright indicated by his twisted, doubled-up figure, which gleams palely against the depth of gloom. The concentrated passion of those murderous arms above him, the tightness of the clench on his neck and about the hilt of the poignard, the spring and pressure of the knee under his chest, the whole tigerlike lurch of that powerful frame, all this is expressed as no other, unless it might be Michel- angelo, could express it. And Tintoretto has achieved it without the sacrifice of proportion so common with the Florentine. An opening on each side of the two trees, at the back, gives a glimpse of distant landscape with threatening sky. The whole scene is one of dread crime, heightened in its effect by the beautiful bodies of the two brothers, with every movement, every line, made more appallingly suggestive by 178 Ube art of tbc Wentce Hcabemg the wonderfully dramatic massing of the shad- ows. If this First Murder is one of Tintoretto’s most famous tragedies, Adam and Eve, near by, must rank as one of his loveliest idyls. For though the subject is that of the world’s fall from grace, and though in the distance the first unhappy two are seen driven from Paradise, there is over the composition the radiant softness and warm glow of a tender summer day, and the two> sitting there might easily be lovers from a Grecian myth. At the left, sitting on a low wall, back to' the spectator, resting partly on his left arm, is Adam, brilliant light sweeping over his back and arm and lower right leg, a rich, luminous shadow thrown over the rest of his body. Facing him, her left arm "wound about the tree-trunk between, is Eve, holding out to her mate the forbidden fruit. She is leaning against the tree, the lines and posi- tion of her body answering his, the light striking her squarely and powerfully. About them are the trees of the garden, and in the distance a view of a valley at the foot of the hills. Into this outer wilderness the two are again seen fleeing, pursued by a cloud of light in which is the avenging angel of the Lord. But, as has been said, this scene takes place so far in the distance that it can scarcely be felt as a disturbing influence. IRoom AIL— Sala bell' Hssunta 179 Over the two in front is the glow of perfect health and a tranquil joy that breathes a dolce far niente only the dwellers of the South can really know. Eve is far less beautiful than her lord and master. There is almost a Dutch quaintness and homeliness in her round face with its big eyes and pouting lips, and the lines of her figure are too square to be the ideal for future races. What she lacks in personal charm Adam has in a superlative degree. As one looks at that firm, rounded, supple figure, almost it seems as if never was man so painted before. The spring of the curving outline, the simplicity of the modelling where one tone slips imperceptibly into another, the splendid firm- ness in the manipulation of the planes, the pearly warmth of the flesh, the luminous quality of the shadow, the easy grace, strength, and poise of the whole figure, all these make this first man one of the most splendid creations of any art. Of the four great Venetian painters, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto-, the last is the only one who was actually born in Venice. He was not only born there, but he scarcely ever left his loved city except for very short periods, and then he never got far away from the lagoons. Authorities differ as to the date of his birth, some placing it as early as 1512, others — Morelli, Berenson, and most of the recent writers — putting it as late as l8 ° Uhc Hrt ot tbe IDentce Bcabemp 1518. His death is universally agreed to as oc- curring in 1594. Jacopo Robusti was called Tin- toretto simply because his father happened to be a dyer, and the nickname given him as a boy, the “ little dyer,” stuck to him through life and is the one by which he is best known to posterity. Nearly all the greatest painters of the Renais- sance left behind them a truly amazing amount of work. Something there was in that regenerative time that made it possible for men to begin work earlier, to keep at it longer, and to accomplish more than modern days and life seem to make possible. But if Raphael and Michelangelo' and Titian are, compared with the most industrious of moderns, veritable wonder-workers, Tintoretto stands out as the wizard of wizards. He covered yards of can- vas where they toiled over feet, producing in days what they could not finish in months. It is on record that in two* months he was to paint two enormous wall decorations and seven portraits, and it is easy to believe that that was no’ unusual amount for his tireless hand. There was no end to his capacity for production just as there was no end either to his fertility of imagination or to his demand for work. No man who ever lived, one believes, began to have such an insatiable hunger for the chance to labour. He never cared, apparently, whether his work was paid for or not, IRoom 11L — Sala Dell' Basunta 181 he only asked to be allowed an opportunity to cover all the vacant wall-spaces in Venice with the works of his hand and brain! The stories of how he circumvented friar and council just to get a chance to present them, gratis , with hundreds of feet of marvellous painting are both amusing and pa- thetic. Money, friendship with the great and mighty, society with the high or low, he cared nothing for. His one love outside his art seems to have been for his gifted daughter Marietta, and stories would indicate that he had a tolerant fond- ness for his wife. But the gaieties and luxuries of such a life as Titian’s he neither knew nor would have. From the time when, a mere boy, he hung up his double motto of “ the drawing of Michel- angelo and the colour of Titian,” his idea of happi- ness was held in the one word, — work. If genius is only another term for hard work, then Tin- toretto was the greatest genius that ever lived. And it is probably true, at least, that no man of so great genius ever worked so unremittingly for so many years. Certainly no one ever began to work so rapidly. While the best modern criticism does not put Tintoretto upon the high peak so enthusiastically placed under him by Ruskin, he is granted a power of poetic conception, a fervour of passion, an ideal- ity, and a virile force that no other painter of Italy 182 zbc Hrt of tbe IPenice Hcabemp ever quite equalled. His best works, too, are not surpassed by the greatest, and in them is nearly always an imaginative height that no other has quite reached, unless it be Michelangelo; and, as has been said many times by others as well as Ruskin, he was seldom guilty of Michelangelo’s malformations. He was the most vigorous, most telling, most forceful in drawing of all the Vene- tians. When he chose he was a great colourist, but much of the time it is apparent that the very fury of his desire to' create made him careless as to his pigments; the dark, ugly, cold canvases that fill much of the walls of S. Rocco are witness to this. He was by far the greatest master of composition of all the Venetians, and no one approached him in that school in his marvellous use and under- standing of chiaroscuro. As has been well said, light to him “ is the first and most powerful of dramatic accessories; he makes the light an actor in his vast compositions.” And it is true that no one else saw the dramatic value of light and shade as he saw it. The mere spotting of the light and shade in many of his works is enough in itself to prove the greatness of his power. Called in his day “ II Furioso,” now, after studying him in II Redentore, in San Rocco, in Santa Maria dell’ Orto, in the Ducal Palace, in the Academy, it is still the title that lingers longest in mind. IRoom fir*- gala bell* Bssunta 183 Mr. Symonds says of him that “ it is not only in the reign of the vast, tempestuous, and tragic that Tintoretto finds himself at home. He is equal to every task that can be imposed upon the imagina- tion. Provided only that the spiritual fount be stirred, the jet of living water gushes forth, pure, inexhaustible and limpid. . . . Tintoretto 1 has proved beyond all question that the fiery genius of titanic artists can pierce and irradiate the placid and the tender secrets of the soul with more con- summate mastery than falls to- the lot of those who make tranquillity their special province.” The eclecticism of the goddess art is never more striking than when one is comparing the works of different geniuses. No more mere mortal may ever say that such and such alone is true art. For no sooner are rules laid down than forth from the very heart of beauty itself, it seems, springs some one great enough to defy all rules, to override all conventions ; and what one day condemns, an- other, with wider vision, proclaims the ineffable perfection. He is the true appreciator and also the true critic who can understand the varying points of view of differing climes, of differing times, and of differing minds. It is a position as difficult to attain as for a rigid sectarianist to see godliness in any but his own special division of the Father’s fold ! It is a position, however, that must 184 flbe Hrt of tbe Venice Bcabemg be taken even in considering the works of the great- est men of the Venetian Renaissance. No two are alike, or have the same thing to say. And it was possible, with the same training, in the same sur- roundings, under the same influences, for two men as different as Tintoretto and Veronese to live, and to express, each one, his own art in his own way. It is only necessary to compare the works of each in this very room to see how radically they differed ; and yet, who, unless he have the dogmatic one- sidedness of a Ruskin, will place one among the gods of art and the other far down among the mere manipulators of paint? That Venice, at least, knew enough to appreciate both her sons is proved by the esteem in which both Veronese and Tintoretto were held. Venice, as a city, in fact, was larger- minded, it appears, than one of her greatest artists. For, according to stories, Titian, while ignoring if not maligning the fiery genius of Robusti, took the younger Veronese under his wing and urged his works upon the city fathers. Whether Titian’s reported antipathy to Tintoretto has any basis in it in fact or not, it is evident from the two men’s works that he and Veronese had more in common than he and Tintoretto. It is easy to' understand that the untrammelled ardour of a nature like Jacopo Robusti ’s might actually have irritated the calmer, perhaps saner, mind of Titian, whereas IRoom if, — Sala &elP Bssunta 185 the serene joyousness of the untroubled heart of Veronese would have seemed to him the much fitter accompaniment of true genius. To-day, though each man has his own particular admirers, the art of both has received its true meed of praise. Veronese, or Paolo Cagliari, his real name, was born in Verona in 1528, and died in Venice in 1588. Though, like most of the Venetian school, he was not a native of Venice, — came there indeed not till he already had attained reputation as a painter in his own town, — yet no other is so wholly Venetian, or so faithfully and brilliantly depicts the life of the Venice of his day. If no con- temporary records, no histories, existed describing the men and women, the customs and the manners, of late sixteenth-century life in this city of the sea, Veronese’s canvases would tell us unmistak- ably what words after all can never wholly explain. In those great light-filled compositions of his live again the nobles, the merchants, the soldiers, the sailors, the courtly matron, the grande dame , the courtesan, the Moors, the Orientals, the servants, the clowns, the very dogs and cats and monkeys of Venice. They are of the Venice of Doge and Council, of fete and gala days, of stately marble halls and audience-chambers, of sunshine and gleaming sea, the city of opulence, of gaiety, of 186 zbc Hvt of tbe IDentce Bcabems frank delight in the joys of the senses; the city that reverenced the material rather than the spirit- ual, and made the art of living a continued feast without satiety, an unending pageant where the actors are never weary and where the tinsel never loses its brave glitter. Such was Venice as Paolo saw her, such she is shown in his transcriptions. For almost literal transcriptions these uncounted yards of painted canvas most certainly are. Contrary to much that has been written, it is in his portraits and his single-figure pictures that Titian is so preeminent. Tintoretto', though cover- ing immense spaces with unexampled rapidity, is not at his best in these, huge affairs, Mr. Ruskin and some others disagreeing, notwithstanding ! But Veronese is never so fully himself, never so easily, so without apparent effort, at his highest, as in his most tremendous compositions. This, too, in spite of the fact that in the rare portrait by him he shows a breadth of view, a largeness of treat- ment and a solidity of handling that make these few examples rank with some of the greatest by Titian. But in general it is not too extremely stated to' say that the bigger the canvas, the fuller it is of light, of atmosphere, of that plein air that envelops and surrounds Veronese’s figures as those of almost no’ other painter of the Renaissance. He has been called the greatest decorator of his IRoom fllh — Sala fceir Bssunta 187 age. It is at least certain that no other Venetian ever began to approach him in this field. But he was vastly more. He was a consummate master of composition, and he was a colourist whose truth- fulness was never tainted by overlove for the allur- ing mysteries of absorbing shadows. Indeed, as recent critics have pointed out, he used shadows very sparingly, painting in with a flatness that, nevertheless, with him is not thinness, that does not ever hint of a lack of roundness. In no one’s pictures is it more possible to “ walk all around ” the figures. As a rule, Veronese contented himself with paint- ing the outside of life. Occasionally, as in one or two portraits, in the Crucifixion at the Louvre and here and there in other pictures, he shows that when he chose he, too', could feel and express the depths beneath the smiling surface. But his was a nature that basked in the sunshine, and he shows it in his pictures, which have a gayness, a frank pleasure in living, and an evident acceptance of things as they are, — - as being after all the best there may be. They are the very qualities that make the best stock in trade for a painter, and, as M. Charles Blanc says, “ Veronese is neither a thinker, an historian, nor a moralist; he is simply and only a painter, but he is a great painter.” It is probably because of their realization of his ex- i88 ube Hrt of tbe IDenice Hcabems traordinary gifts as a painter that it is men of his own profession who have most fully appreciated him. For England is not alone in her popular opinion that the more story a picture tells, that much the greater it is. Of all the painters of all time Veronese shows the least effort in his work. Tintoretto painted even more rapidly, — but it was with a furiousness that, as one looks, actually wearies by its very haste. Rubens, too, has such a blare, as it were, about his work, that, though you admire, it is breathlessly, with a staggered wonder that always leaves you conscious of the enormous amount of effort the works required. With Veronese there is never a hint of fatigue. It is impossible to wonder about the hours the work cost. They are so free from any taint of attempt, so simple and sponta- neous, that you are content to believe the Venetian must have brushed them off while waiting in a comfortable armchair for tea! No blazoning of attainments, no' rushing torrent that overwhelms with its power, no fanfare of technical tricks, or posings, here. All is as quietly serene, as easily accomplished as if painting a Marriage at Cana or Feast in the House of Levi were as normal and usual a thing as eating or breathing! W. M. Rossetti says of him, that “ Paolo Vero- nese is preeminently a painter working pictorially, IRoom irir* — Sala bell' Bssunta 189 and in no wise amenable to a literary or rationaliz- ing standard ; you can neither exhibit nor vindicate his scenic apparatus by any transcriptions into words. He enjoys a sight much as Ariosto en- joys a story, and displays it in form and colour with a zest like that of Ariosto for language and verse.” Discriminating are the words, too, of Messrs. Blashfield and Hopkins: “Veronese is the best all-round draughtsman among the Venetians of the sixteenth century ; his bodies and faces have a constructive soundness rarely found in the pictures of Titian and Tintoretto, and conspicuously absent in some of the latter’s greatest works. His colour has a transparent , brilliant lightness unequalled by that of any other master, and a sweeping sureness of touch which is a delight to the modern painter.” Except for a trip to Rome with the Venetian ambassadors, Veronese hardly left Venice once he had settled in it. Recommended by Titian, he was his assistant in the decorations of the Great Coun- cil Hall of the Ducal Palace, which, with all the other precious works, was destroyed by fire. His frescoes in the Sacristy of S. Sebastiano were his next works, and here he is seen in the plenitude of his power. The Academy has a long list of works catalogued as Veronese’s, but Berenson and other modern critics do not allow him nearly all i9° Ube Ert of tbe IDenice Ecabem$ of these, and at least it is certain that so many of them have been worked over by the restorer that little of their original condition can be conjec- tured. Also it is probable that Carlo, his son, was responsible for parts of some of them that have since been ascribed wholly to the father. In Room n there are a couple of canvases that are unmistakably Paolo’s, though even in one of these it is possible that parts belong more or less to his assistants. This is the ceiling decoration which once was in the Dhcal Palace, representing Venice Enthroned. The shape of the canvas is a quatrefoil, and the framing of it cuts regardlessly into shoulders and legs so that it is amazing that there is any balance to the picture at all. There is not only balance, however, there is a splendid swing and a spotting as unique as it is effective. Venice is seated so that the lower part of her fig- ure fills the centre and part of the left half of the square, while her head and shoulders rise into the upper circular opening. She is turned three-quar- ters to the right, and, with left hand extended and eyes lifted, seems to be gazing into futurity and to be quite heedless of the attendants about her. Scarcely beautiful in face, in figure she is one of Veronese’s deep-chested, broad-shouldered, calmly majestic women such as fill so many of his can- vases. It is the kind of woman found not only VENICE ENTHRONED By Paolo Veronese IRoom M.-Sala Deir Bssunta 19 1 in his, but so often, also, in Tintoretto’s, Palma’s, and Titian’s pictures that one names it at once as typically Venetian. They are never intellectual, these women. Nor is there the archness or co- quetry that might be expected in the non-intellectual order of women. Rather they have a certain mass- ive impressiveness and a naturalness that is frankly, if rather grandly, of the earth, earthy. The calm, primal, unspoiled mate of man, — that is what perhaps the type most often expresses. Ven- ice here is no exception to the rule, though there is a might of sovereignty in her very gestures. She is dressed in a rich brocaded satin robe over a rose-toned gown, with pearls in her ears, about her throat, and on her breast, a golden crown on her fair hair. At her feet, on a lower step and partly covered by her mantle, is a lion, and before, at her right, the half-nude figure of Ceres, holding up her robe filled with wheat. At the other side of Venice, one foot on the lowest step of the throne, is Hercules, standing in profile, nude except for a skin knotted about his chest. He is a heavy, mus- cular fellow, with mighty chest, thick, short neck, and curly dark beard and hair. His left hand holds his club and he is leaning forward looking apparently at Ceres. Back of him a young and lovely girl in a blue robe, with flowers in her hair, is seen, and farther still in the background, at the 19 2 Ube Hrt of tbe IDenice Bcabein£ right of Venice, another woman. Below this en- tire group is a little Love lifting a big sheaf of wheat over his shoulders. Like most of the Vene- tians, Veronese was at his happiest when his brush was painting a chubby baby, and the little one here has an unformed, entrancing grace and naturalness that contrast delightfully with the mature and ample figure above him. It has been said that Veronese never painted a satisfactory Madonna or Holy Family. His art was too scenic to be at its best in the simple altar- piece in which Bellini was greatest. Critics have even used the Holy Family in this room as a flagrant example of his inability properly to mass such a group or to keep the relationship of parts coherent, to give it, in effect, any real excuse for being. All of these objections are to* a certain ex- tent, and from one point of view, undeniably true. Yet it remains equally undeniable that the picture is one of the most beautiful altar-pieces in the world. On a high seat in front of a rounding niche, hung with a black and gold embroidery, sits the Madonna dressed in a red robe, blue mantle lined with green, and a grayish-toned veil that falls over the back of her head and on to her shoulder. Her figure is turned three-quarters to the right, her face slightly to the left, and she holds upright in HOLY FAMILY By Paolo Veronese IRoom Ilf, — Sala t>eir Bssunta 193 her arms the Child. He has one arm about her neck, the other at her throat, while one tiny foot rests on her hand holding the Scriptures. Beside them is Joseph, in blue robe and yellow mantle, leaning on his staff, his head in profile. Below, standing back to on a marble pedestal, is the tiny Baptist, a skin thrown over his right shoulder and tied with a band about his waist, a cross in his right hand. At the left, in profile, stands St. James, resting his left elbow on the pedestal and showing his hand with the stigmata, which the little Baptist is lightly touching. St. Justina, with pearls in her beautiful hair, her irregular and charming profile lifted to the group above, is seen behind St. James. At the right, both elbows on the pedestal, holding a big, open book, leans St. Jerome, in rose-coloured brocaded robe and crimson velvet hood. His face is turned three-quarters out and he is looking downward in a deep study. Holding up a gray drapery back of the Madonna is a golden-haired cherub. If this picture lacks somewhat in compositional unity, it makes it up in beauty of colour, in nobility of face and figure, and, especially, in the fasci- nating loveliness of the two babies. Mary has a grace and tenderness of expression that suggest spiritual depths seldom felt in the women of Vero- nese. It is the Venetian type of face, but greatly i94 Zhe Brt of tbe IDenice Hcafcem# idealized and softened. Her mouth is unusually lovely in its curves, her eyes are limpidly tender, with neither the wide stare nor the sleepy indolence shown in many of the Madonnas of later Venetian art. As for the baby Jesus, the fresh, round beauty of his little limbs, the adorable pressure of his tiny hand, the soft fineness of his yellow curls, the ap- pealing tenderness of his expression, all this makes him one of Veronese’s loveliest of baby Christs, — and, as even Ruskin was fain to remark, the Child in nearly all of Veronese’s works was almost al- ways rarely beautiful. The St. John on the ped- estal has been objected to by at least one critic on account of his position. But it may be doubted whether this deliberate placing of his back to the spectator was not a necessity of Paolo’s compo- sitional scheme. At all events, that sturdy little back and legs are modelled with surety and supple- ness, and have a silvery brightness of colour that perhaps only Correggio could have excelled. The faces of the three men are portraitlike in their in- dividualism and careful delineation. The dream- ing calm of Jerome is in telling contrast with the lined, anxious profile of St. Francis, and not less remarkable is the adoring, if somewhat puzzled, regard of Joseph himself. But far beyond the interest roused by these mas- terly figures is the charm exerted by the Mother IRoom m — Saia bell’ Bssunta 195 and Child. Again and again the eye returns to those beautiful two, and each time it seems unjust stricture that names Cagliari a painter with no soul. CHAPTER X. ROOM VII. — SALA DEI FRIULANI The Sala dei Friulani is so named from the works of men from the Friuli country which mostly fill it. One of these men was Martino da Udine, or Pellegrino da S. Daniele, as he is some- times called. He was the son of a Dalmatian, Battista, a painter who lived at Udine, and he was born probably between 1460 and 1470. “ It is conjectured that Martino derived his appellation of Pellegrino, which is equivalent to the ‘ little stranger,’ from his foreign origin, while the ad- junct of San Daniele came from the little Friulian town in which his father resided and in which Mar- tino long worked as painter.” He began his fres- coes in the choir of the Church of S. Antonio' at San Daniele, but, on account of the wars be- tween the Venetians and Emperor Maximilian, which drove him from the country, he did not finish them till nearly a quarter of a century after- ward. During that time he lived in Venice and 196 IRoom MIL — Sala bet ffrtulant 197 visited other important cities in Italy. His early work at San Daniele shows him a hard, dry painter with little technical knowledge, but his later proves him to* have absorbed much from the Bellini and the other great Venetians. Indeed, he so far suc- ceeded in copying their style that many works which have been attributed. to these far greater men are proved now to be his own. He recalls Giorgione, Pordenone, Romanino, and even at times Titian and Palma Vecchio. He died in 1547. “ He is a striking instance,” says Layard, “ of an imitator of certain grand qualities in Venetian art, without the careful drawing and deeper feel- ing requisite to' form a first-rate master. He has consequently acquired a far greater reputation than he deserves, for he was, in fact, a very mediocre painter.” He had heavy outlines, abrupt and unsustained transitions from light to shadow, too' much red- ness in his flesh-tones and angularity in his drapery. He was the teacher of Pordenone, and when that far more talented youth began to out- rival his master, Pellegrino did not hesitate to copy his erstwhile pupil’s manner. The three pictures in Room 7 are not by any means up to his best works. Of the two< Annun- ciations, the one which came from the Chiesa di S. Francesco in Treviso is perhaps the mare grace- *9 8 Uhe Brt ot tbe Venice Bcabems ful. Mary is shown kneeling at the right before a prie-dieu in a marble-tiled court under a hanging of white drapery. She is dressed in a dark green mantle bordered with golden embroidery. At the left, coming from a marble porch, is the angel with a lily in his left hand, his right lifted in blessing. He is dressed in a gray mantle over a yellowish- toned tunic with blue sleeves. His face and features are very girlish, while his figure is some- what robust and heavy. In the background, show- ing through an open loggia, is a landscape, and in the sky above the head and shoulders of the Al- mighty are seen in the midst of clouds. There is little grace of action here, the shadows are unreal, the colours not well-chosen or arranged. Part of these faults may, however, well be due to the re- storer. It was painted in 1519 for the Tailors’ Guild at Udine, and critics have claimed that it is only a copy of one in S. Antonio. The other Annunciation is on two panels and probably made part of a larger picture. The Vir- gin, in a crimson robe under a blue mantle lined with gold-coloured silk, with a white linen head- veil, is seen standing in a room by an open window. Near this a dove is flying. The angel is placed with some grace of arrangement, wearing a white robe, maize-coloured sleeves with scarlet trimming on the shoulder. He is in the full light, which is IRooin MIL — Sala Det ftlulanf 199 made more marked by the shadow thrown on the wall behind. His wings are iridescent in colour. Both of the figures are under life-size. Of an entirely different calibre is the Holy Fam- ily with John the Baptist and St. Catherine, which some critics do not assign to Palma Vecchio, but which others, of equal authority, do. Whether by Palma or not, there is scarcely a more beautiful picture to be found under his name than this charm- ing Santa Conversazione. In colouring, in mass, and in balance it is a masterpiece of art. The baby Jesus is adorable, its perfect little form full of grace and dimpled loveliness, the face a marvel of baby beauty. Seated at the right, on a marble base at the foot of a group of marble columns, is Mary, almost in full face, holding the Child upright on her knee. Her head is turned to the left and she is smiling at St. Catherine, who, seated at her feet, seems to be presenting John the Baptist, kneeling at the left. At the right, lower than Mary, is Joseph, his rugged, pathetic face lifted to the Child, who is gazing at him with a tender smile, while his tiny hand is raised in blessing. Both Mary and Catherine are charming types, less massive in build than is usual with Palma, and Joseph is portrayed with a sympathetic appre- ciation seldom found in the Italian pictures of the 200 xr be Hvt of tbe Dentce Bcabem$ Holy Family. The whole scene is one of beauty, full of the most glowing, pulsing colour. Jacopo, or Jacomo Palma, known in the history of art as Palma Vecchio, was born, it is now pretty generally believed, in Serinalta, a village near Ber- gamo 1 , but at what date has not been definitely set- tled. If Vasari is right in his statement that he was forty-eight when he died, he must have been born in 1480, documents having been discovered prov- ing his death to have occurred in 1528. By Vasari and by the Venetians Palma was always claimed as a native of Venice, and it is supposed that he must have gone there very young, and perhaps have entered Giovanni Bellini’s bottega along with Titian and Giorgione. His work shows traits characteristic of all three painters as well as some more peculiarly the property of his own country- man, Lorenzo Lotto. Lotto and he were intimate friends and the influence of each can be felt in the other’s work. Palma’s real place in the history of art in Italy is the subject of considerable dispute. On one side Crowe and Cavalcaselle, basing their opinion upon the supposed date of 1 500 of a picture in the Conde Museum, Paris, claim that he was one of the greatest leaders of Venetian art, — that he was an originator and that he “ shared with Giorgione and Titian the honour of modernizing and regenerating Venetian art.” Morelli, and in- IRoom Mfl. — Sala &ei jfriulani 201 deed most modern critics, dispute this hotly, claim- ing that the date of the Conde picture is un- doubtedly a late forgery, and that there is nothing in Palma’s work, delightful as it is, that can put it on a plane with these greatest Venetians. In the Academy there are few of Palma’s works. Berenson gives him only three, but generally he is credited with four, the Assumption, Christ and the Adulteress, St. Peter Enthroned, and the Holy Family just described. If not the originator of the so-called Santa Con- versazione, Palma Vecchio' developed it to a greater extent than any of the men before him. The sub- ject was peculiarly suited to his temperament, with its smiling landscape background, its grouping of cheerful, healthy men and women, its display of costly silks and gleaming jewels. More than all else Palma is known as the painter of women, — Venetian women of society of the first half of the sixteenth century. He was one of the most fash- ionable portrait-painters in Venice, probably be- cause no one better than he could intensify the golden notes of the blond hair, or make more pearly the tones of the fair complexion. In his pictures, whether actually portraits or not, live again the women of his day. They are all large, of ample proportions, with a calm dignity of bearing, border- ing, it is true, not infrequently upon the lethargic, 202 Ubc Brt of tbe Denice Bcabems with a type of face that suggests placidity rather than power, and a poise gained more from inaction than restraint. As has been said, these Venetian beauties are seldom intellectual, nor do they often appear possessed of any great power of emotion. But they are always intensely feminine, and in their flowing silken robes with ropes of pearl about their white necks, softly gleaming stones on hair, breast, and fingers, they express fully and perfectly the opulence and the indolence of the aristocracy of the time which gave them birth. Only in his St. Barbara in Santa Maria Formosa does Palma succeed in portraying a woman of a nobility of ex- pression, of a grandeur of form and face, of an in- tensity of spiritual power, that place her far beyond the unthinking, quiescent maids and matrons of most of his portrait or Sante Conversazioni groups. From a technical point of view, Palma is greater as a colourist than as a draughtsman. No Venetian, probably, has surpassed him in his power of ex- pressing light-embued, pearly flesh. He fairly dazzles with his brilliant transparent tones. His brush-work was full, rich, and liquid, with a solid firmness of touch that has reminded critics more of Bellini than of Titian or Lotto. If lacking in the imagination and invention of Titian, Giorgione, or even Lotto, Palma’s works have a satisfying quality that in its last analysis perhaps may be said IRoom ID 1 F 1 L — Sala Dei jfrtulani 203 to pertain to the material rather than to the mental or spiritual. They exhale a “ Good Cheer ” that has something allied to the contentment of a well- housed, well-fed, well-dressed, and, also, well-bred member of that society sometimes labelled in Eng- land the “ Landed Gentry.” Giovanni de’ Busi, who was a pupil of Palma Vecchio, is known in the history of art as Cariani. He was a Bergamasque, and was bom in Fuipiano in 1480. Vasari does not even mention him, and only a few years after his death his works were already ascribed to such men as Giorgione, Sebas- tiano del Piombo', Lorenzo Lotto, and, especially, to Palma Vecchio. His own manner changed with the years, and attributes of any one of these men may be seen in his works of different periods. Morelli says that, whereas Palma Vecchio is “ un- doubtedly the most accomplished, complete, and well-balanced of all the Bergamasque artists,” Cariani, nevertheless, was “ the most vigorous and full of vitality among them.” Of his works in the Venice Academy Lafenes- tre only allows him two, both in Room 9, one, the portrait of an unknown man, the other a Holy Con- versation. Berenson credits him with another por- trait of an old man and one of an old woman be- sides. The new official catalogue gives the Holy Conversation which Lafenestre credits to* Cariani, 204 Ube Hrt ot tbe Dentce Bcabem^ to Rizzo of the Vecchi, but ascribes to Cariani the Mother and Child with the Baptist in Room 7, a work which Lafenestre claims as Previtali’s. While so many noted critics disagree as to the works of this painter, who was himself, apparently, much of a chameleon in the way he adopted the style and manner of the men working about him, it is useless for the ordinary student to form much opinion con- cerning them. Accepting Berenson’s as well as the official catalogue’s attribution to Cariani of the Santa Conversazione in this room, the student, at least, will be able to form a pretty fair idea of that painter’s manner. It is an out-of-doors scene, the Madonna in the centre under a tree, dressed in a red robe and blue mantle lined with yellow. She is sitting in full face, holding the Child upright on her knees, her face turned toward the right. The little nude baby is looking toward the left at St. John, a tiny boy in a green tunic, presenting to Jesus St. Zacha- rias, a brilliantly costumed personage in his crim- son robe, gray cloak, and yellow turban. At the right is St. Catherine in a green dress, white chemisette, and brown mantle, her wheel of martyr- dom before her. The background for the group is the sky where the sun is seen setting. The pic- ture shows Cariani’s fine feeling for colour, and the figures have some of the vigour and strength that ffioom ID1F1L — Sala t>et ffrtulani 205 he possessed to' a greater degree than Bonifazio, whom he otherwise much resembles. Another Madonna and Child with Saints, which the catalogue calls a Cariani, Berenson does not acknowledge as that painter’s work. It is sadly repainted, but in spite of that has many character- istics of the Bergamasque artist, but probably of his early days. In the centre, on a sort of pedestal built of stone in three parts, the sides being lower than the middle portion, sits Mary holding the Child. He is curi- ously ill-drawn and awkward, while she shows much of the freedom and knowledge of the six- teenth century. Behind the stone, at the left, is a fair-haired, placid-faced woman with the aureole of a saint. At the left is the Magdalen in profile, with her box of ointment, and between her and Mary is Joseph leaning on a cane. There is almost as much if not more dispute concerning Previtali and hi§ works as there is over Cariani and his. The Madonna and Child with John the Baptist and St. Catherine, in this room, which some critics acknowledge as a Previtali, others, as well as Professor Pietro Paoletti di Os- waldo in the official catalogue of the Academy, call a Cariani. It shows the Virgin seated in a chamber at the right, turned three-quarters to the left, both hands placed about the baby Jesus, who is nursing. 2o6 Ube Hrt of tbe Dentce Ecabems At the left, gazing at the two, is St. Catherine lean- ing on her wheel, dressed in a red robe, yellow mantle, and white head-veil, a jewelled brooch on her breast. Slightly farther back is John the Bap- tist, in a red mantle, holding out a cross to the Holy Child. Back of Mary is a green drapery, and through a window is a landscape with mountainous distance and a fortified castle. Morelli believes Andrea Previtali a pupil of the Bellini, with colouring second only to Gianbellini, and a painter of sympathetic and interesting land- scapes, but says he has no real originality in con- ception, nor even much grace or beauty. He en- tirely disagrees with Crowe and Cavalcaselle and some of the Italian critics, who think Previtali and Cordeliaghi were one and the same. These author- ities, says Morelli, ascribe to Previtali many too beautiful works which really are by far greater men. According to this latter writer, he was a thoroughly faithful follower of Bellini. Francesco and Girolamo> da Santa Croce were also followers of Bellini, though weak ones. They were natives of the town from which they took their name, a little Bergamasque village a few miles from Bergamo itself. Francesco is the elder of the two, who are either brothers or near relatives. The earliest date on his works, says Kugler, is 1504, the latest 1547. In spite of the influence of IRoom MIL — 5 a la del ffriulant 207 Bellini evident in his works, he shows little real appreciation of the glorious art in the midst of which he lived. Girolamo is believed to have been his assistant, though some writers claim him to be the superior painter of the two. The Vision of Christ to the Magdalen, in Room 7, is a large panel painted in 1513 for the nunnery of the Dominicans in Venice. The landscape, ac- cording to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, is “ stolen, as it were, from Basaiti,” and it has the “ short, bull- headed figures with the crabbed features which mark Bellini’s Circumcision at Castle Howard.” Jesus, still in his grave-clothes, is shown standing in the centre holding a banner. He is reaching out his pierced hand to the Madonna, who is ac- companied by a woman and two disciples. At the right are two other disciples and another woman, and in the air are two flying angels. This is heavy, the nudes awkward, and the heads coarse and angu- lar. The colour, however, is brilliant, and the handling shows the man well-accustomed to his art. Perhaps the best part of the picture is the dra- peries. Girolamo follows closely in the elder’s wake, keeping the style of the earlier century even in the midst of the great advance that art was making in Venice. Their works have a certain prettiness that passes muster for sentiment and religious 2o8 ube Hrt of tbe Dentce Bcabent£ feeling. The series of saints by Girolamo in Room 7 are fair examples of his successful style. St. John the Evangelist is shown turned three- quarters to the right, in a red robe and green man- tle, writing in an open book. St. Mark, turned three-quarters to the left in a red robe and blue mantle, is reading from a book, his lion at his feet. Another panel represents the two Church saints, Gregory and Augustine, with rich, embroidered priestly robes, showing a care of handling and a certain amount of freedom that do not hide the absence of any originality. The Scourging of Christ in this same room was called by Catena, much to the disgust of Morelli, who labels it “ a worthless production undoubtedly by Girolamo da Santa Croce.” It shows Jesus, nude save for a cloth about his loins, tied to a pil- lar, an executioner on each side of him with their knotted whips in hand, fiendish enjoyment shining from their twisted, ill-constructed faces. Jesus is a shrinking, terrified figure, and has neither nobil- ity, beauty, nor even correct anatomy to give him dignity. The composition, with the judge seated at the left and the group of mockers at the right, is empty and unbalanced. The Madonna and Child with St. John the Bap- tist, St. Anna, and St. Louis, by Benedetto Diana, in this room, shows the Madonna on a throne which iRoorn OTfl. — Sala &ei petulant 209 makes a chapel-like niche. She is clad in a rose- toned robe and blue mantle lined with yellow, and is turning three-quarters to the right, offering a flower to the baby Jesus, who is standing on the pedestal of the throne. The little St. John with his cross is slightly farther back, and at the foot of the throne an angel is picking up flowers. In the fore- ground at the right is St. Anna in a blue robe and gray mantle, at the left is St. Louis in white sur- plice and brocaded dalmatic lined with green. Back, through two openings at the sides of the throne, is a distant landscape with castles on the right and left. Morelli and all the earlier writers give this to Diana, but some recent critics have doubted his claim to it. The Woman Taken in Adultery is a subject which Marconi repeated several times. The one in Room 7, according to the catalogue, is only a copy of one of his works. Molmenti, Kugler, East- lake, Berenson, and others consider it an original. The composition is overfull of figures, and Jesus, though not without a certain tenderness of expres- sion, is ineffective in pose, and his gestures are un- meaning. Better than he is the turbaned man stand- ing at the right, with outstretched hand, apparently arguing with the Master. Best of all, however, is the culprit, here depicted as a true penitent, her lovely, refined face full of a sorrow as real as it is 2 10 Zhc Hrt of tbe Dentce Bcabem# touching. The draperies are rich in colour, and the harmony of tones is fairly musical in its vibrations. The Saviour between St. Peter and St. John has a solemnity of expression that, as M. Charles Blanc says, is a trifle monotonous. The chief beauty of the picture lies, as is usual with Marconi, in its fine colour effect, which effect is achieved not only by the rich-toned robes, but by the landscape back- ground, where trees mass against the evening sky filled with soft floating clouds. Jesus stands in the centre of the scene, his right hand lifted in benediction. On the right is St. John the Baptist, bearing a cross over his shoulder, a lamb lying at his feet. Peter is at the left holding the keys and a book. The figures are almost life- size. Peter’s face is dignified, and is the best piece of character work in the composition. CHAPTER XI. ROOM XX. SALA DELLA PRESEN TAZIONE The so-called Sala della Presentazione was the old Albergo, the reception-hall, of the Scuola della Carita, and has the same carved and painted ceil- ing which was redecorated and practically recon- structed as early as 1443. It is a magnificent sam- ple of Renaissance ornamentation, the blue and gold of its colour scheme blending sympathetically and richly with the colouring of the medallions in which are represented Jesus in the centre, with the four Evangelists in surrounding framing. The pictures in this room are the ones which were originally painted for it, so that as far as may be the hall is now as it was in the days of the Brother- hood. It holds the finest picture by the founders of the Venetian school of the Renaissance as well as one of the most noted of the greatest master of that school. The first of these is the Virgin Enthroned, by Antonio and Johannes da Murano, the first of the Vivarini, and is a far more important work than 211 212 ftbe Brt of tbe Venice Hcabem# any in the Sala dei Maestri Primitivi. Like all the examples of the “ primitives,” it has an enor- mous amount of the raised gold stucco work and Gothic architectural background, the latter carried here to a finish of detail and elaboration of parts suggesting the German origin of at least one of its painters. It shows the Mother and Child sitting on a throne under a canopy supported by four tall, slender poles held by four little angels whose long wings break not unpleasingly against the Gothic court which makes the background. On the left of this group is St. Jerome, in cardinal’s robes, holding in his right hand the miniature model of his church, and in his left an open book. Next him is St. Gregory, in papal regalia. At the right are St. Ambrose with his crozier and knotted scourge and St. Augustine with crozier and book. In spite of the manifold repainting to which this picture has been subjected, there is enough of the original work left to indicate the style of the Ger- man and Muranese. There is a dignity to the straight, somewhat stiff and conventionally placed doctors of the Church, and the four little angels, with their long robes falling into easy if rather too unbroken folds, have a grace and quiet charm, counterbalanced by the calm majesty and benignity that shine from out the absorbed, dreaming face of the Madonna and by the repose of her figure. In ST. AMBROSE AND ST. AUGUSTINE (Detail from the Virgin Enthroned) By Antonio and Johannes Vivarini IRoom ££♦ — Sala fcella presenta3ione 213 spite of archaism and convention there are here, unmistakably, real power and ability, and it is not hard to 1 understand how, from such beginnings, the school of Venice could blossom out into a Titian or Tintoretto 1 . Titian’s Presentation, which gives its name to the hall, now hangs in exactly the place for which it was painted, at one end, with two doors cutting into it, one on each side of the centre. It is due to Signor Cantalamessa that it is back in its original position, for it was he who superintended its re- moval from another room, to which it had been transferred for many years. This transference had necessitated piecing up the square openings made by the doors and painting over the new surface, thus decidedly changing the composition. It ap- pears now as Titian left it, except for the ills the restorer has brought upon it. In many places it has been retouched and cleaned, and the figure of Anna and the dress of the old egg woman, at least, are wholly modern rendering. The picture was painted probably about 1542. It is stated that Titian made a sketch for it as early as when he was in Giovanni Bellini’s bottega, and it is further claimed that in Jacopo Bellini’s sketch-book can be found the same, or a very simi- lar composition, showing that Titian apparently borrowed his idea from him. If he did, the bor- 2i4 Ube Brt of tbe Denice Bcabemp rowing was much like Shakespeare’s borrowing from whatever source was handiest, his genius of creation afterward making it all a thousandfold more truly his than it had ever been another’s, even in its rudimentary state. At the right, on the upper step at the entrance to a temple with marble columns, stands the high priest, in Jewish priestly garments of yellow and blue over a white robe, his hands raised in greet- ing as he stands waiting for the little Mary who has mounted the great gray stone steps half-way toward him. At the foot of the flight stand the Mother of Mary and a woman attendant, and back of them, crowding about the steps and coming from the loggia of another building, are many other men, women, and children, all dressed in the Vene- tian fashion of Titian’s day. Back of the high priest is a bearded man in cardinal’s robes and a young acolyte in red and yellow suit, bearing the book of service. Stately buildings with Corinthian pillars and coloured marble fagades, with people at windows and on balconies, extend back from the temple steps, and in the distance is a rocky moun- tainous region and a cloudless sky. In the imme- diate foreground, sitting on the ground beside the steps, is an old market-woman with her basket of eggs beside her, — a wonderful bit of realistic PRESENTATION By Titian IRoom ££. — Sala Della IPresentastone 215 painting whose excellences all the vituperations of a Ruskin have not lessened. Such is the general scheme of this world-famous picture. But no' mere words can half describe the masterly treatment of it from a compositional point of view. The massing and grouping of the crowd watching the progress of the child Mary, the way the lines of the buildings are utilized to< connect this lower portion with the priest and temple en- trance, the management of the radiance that sur- rounds the child so that, although almost at one end of the canvas, it is she who becomes the focal centre of the composition, all this shows Titian’s mastery over the technicalities of his art. But these painter attributes and attainments, great as they are, are not, Mr. Ruskin to the contrary notwith- standing, nearly the greatest or most vital attri- butes of the work. It is the humanity, the reality, the life in it, which have given it a fame accorded only a few of the greatest pictures in the world. The beauty of the tonal relations, the richness of the colouring, the depth of the shadows, the brilliance of that mysterious light about the child, the enveloping atmosphere of the whole, these, again, are Titian at his highest expression. But even they do not explain the tender, pathetic beauty of that little girl in her sky-blue dress, going up those steps so bravely alone, her fearless little hand 216 u be Brt of tbe IDentce BcaDems lifted to the mighty priest above her, her golden hair shimmering in the radiance that sweeps about her, flooding the steps, reaching to the priest above, and extending back to the watching friends and neighbours, but intensifying and concentrating all its bewildering brilliance only about her sturdy little figure. So marvellously does the painter express this golden glow, that there is no hint of artificial- ity about it, — it does not seem painted, nor is it forced; it belongs there, one feels, as much as the child herself, — is, indeed, an integral part of her, and her enduring charm. In this same room is John the Baptist in the Desert, painted when Titian was not far from eighty years old. It is one of the finest single-figure compositions he ever accomplished, showing a vigour of construction, a depth of insight, and a creative power that fourscore years had apparently only strengthened. Standing in front and slightly at one side of a high rocky ledge, which reaches to the top of the canvas, is the Baptist, unclothed except for the loin- cloth and the cape of skins that comes down over one shoulder and about his right thigh. He is in nearly full face, his weight resting on his right leg, his right arm raised as if beckoning to some one, his head turned, looking in the same direction. His left hand holds the end of his cloak of pelts IRoom ££♦ — Sala Della ©resentasione 217 and his reed cross. Behind him a brook flows through a mountainous rocky region, and heavy clouds fill the sky. The red-brown flesh of the Man of the Wilder- ness shows the effect of wind and rain, sun and storm, and the black-bearded face, with its long, curling hair, its piercing black eyes, its absorbed, vigilant expression, is that of no anemic: dreamer. The form is spare, but full of a tense vigour, the pose has a calmness that only a man of great ac- tivity and great restraint can command. The vigi- lance of the eyes, the firm lines of the mouth, do not negative too strongly the benevolent brow, the fine, delicate nose. It is a complex character here that Titian has portrayed, and no one else, one feels, has ever so nearly expressed what the Man Who Came Before must have been. In anatomical construction, too, this figure is one of the best that Titian ever achieved. The portrait of Jacopo Soranzo has been given by critics, including Mr. Berenson, to Tintoretto, but, though it is much spoiled by repainting, the balance of opinion seems inclined to> regard it as a work of the older Venetian. The entire upper part of the background and the hands are new, and all of it is much injured by time, dampness, and the restorer. Jacopo di Francesco Soranzo was elected procu- 218 Ufee art of tbe IDenice Hcabenrs? rator in 1522, obtaining the coveted honour, it is said, by the expenditure of fourteen thousand duc- ats. The picture is supposed to have been executed at the time of his election, when he was about fifty- six years old, but he appears far older than that, with his soft white beard and hair and rather sunken mouth. The large dark eyes still hold the penetrating fires of youth, however, and the straight, easy carriage is that of a man in middle age. The portrait is half-length, showing Soranzo sitting almost full face in an armchair, his head turned to the left, a black velvet skull-cap pulled down on to his forehead, a fur-bordered silk pelisse drawn close up to his neck and entirely covering his figure in its ample folds. CHAPTER XII. ROOM IX. SALA DI PAOLO VERONESE Room 9 holds most of Tintoretto’s paintings in the Academy, and among them are many notable portraits. As a painter of men, and particularly of middle-aged and old men, Tintoretto^ has rarely been excelled. Often little more than sketches, so far as handling goes, they have a vigour, a life, a fire, that few artists have equalled. The great number of these male portraits by the fiery genius that could cover more yards of canvas in a month than most of his brethren, either before or since, could in a year, is only another proof of the amaz- ing breadth of his genius. Considering the gigan- tic nature of most of Tintoretto’s achievements, these portraits impress one. as being the work of his off hours, recreative breaks, as it were, in the midst of stupendous labours. What to less appal- lingly fertile brains might alone have been sufficient accomplishment for an entire lifetime, seems with him the result of his playtime, his breathing-spaces. They are more brutally frank, as a rule, than Titian 219 220 Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabems allowed his brush to be. There is not always about them that air of well-being, and, at least, superficial good breeding, so noticeable in the elder man’s por- traits. On the other hand, they do not search the depths as do the greater portraits of Lotto. Tin- toretto expressed what he saw, and also what he felt, as he transferred to canvas these solid, if a trifle heavy, these world-weary yet supremely ac- tive, these luxury-loving men of affairs, — men in whose hands the future of Venice was daily growing more precarious, more certainly lost. But as for probing the secrets of their hearts, attempt- ing any psychologic analysis of their double or single motives, — that he had no time for. He might see a hint of it all in furtive eye, in erect, suspicious carriage, in overtense movement, in deepened, tale-bearing line. Well and good, into the portrait the half-closed lid, the watchful air, the furrowed cheek, the weakened mouth would go, and you could draw your own conclusions. He was far too intent on weightier matters to 1 do' it for you, or to give any fuller answer to your prob- ing questions. The portraits here of senator, am- bassador, procurator, doge, show his character- istics strongly. They are business men, these chiefs of Venetian public life, who, in spite of threescore years, are as full of life and the capacity for doing as a youth of twenty. But they show, too, almost SALA DI PAOLO VERONESE IRoom H£* — Sala M paolo Veronese 221 invariably, the effect of the luxurious life of the time. They are active, but they have more inter- est in achieving their own purposes, in filling their own pockets, than in conserving the rights of others or in steering their ship of state to 1 a noble course. Among them all it is, perhaps, invidious to pick out any few for special description, but certainly one of the most famous is that of the Doge Alvise Mocenigo, a picture formerly in the Ufffcio dei Procuratori di Ultra. It is a life-size, little more than half-length portrait, and represents the doge sitting, turned three-quarters to the left, his eyes turned in the opposite direction, his hands resting lightly on the arms of the chair. His robes are brown, and the whole picture is a symphony of brown and gray. The doge has his ducal cap on his head, his beard is long but thin, showing plainly his full-pursed lips. His large, watchful eyes, long, heavy nose, and the somewhat bloated flesh under his eyes, indicate a coarseness of fibre in the sitter that history does not contradict. Extremely vigorous in delineative power is the Portrait of a Man, shown standing, clad in a belted, full black jacket bordered with ermine, a white collar over the fur at his neck. He is facing three- quarters to* the left, his eyes turned to the spectator, an opening in the wall beside him displaying a roughly executed landscape, and at the right be- 222 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabem$ hind him a drapery of green tones. He is of middle age, with short dark hair banged irregu- larly across his high but rather narrow forehead, his short beard and moustache not fully covering the upper lip. The lids are heavy, the nose fleshy and long. The effect is that of an inactive, stub- born personality. The colouring of the flesh is reddish, and the whole picture is painted with that surety and ease which were Tintoretto’s birth- dower. The portrait of Antonio Cappello, Procurator of San Marco in 1525, has been ascribed to Titian, and also to Mazza. If it is Tintoretto’s, it is probably an early work, showing a solidity but hardness of modelling characteristic of his youthful style. It represents a middle-aged man with graying hair and beard, in a claret-coloured robe bordered with ermine, his right hand held out before him. The tones are luminous against the dark background, and, as one critic aptly remarks, he looks quite the modern Englishman. Marco Grimani is another of somewhat doubtful attribution. It has even been given to Palma the Younger. It is a life-size, half-length portrait, dis- playing the procurator standing, turning three- quarters to the right, his head to the left. His hair, beard, and moustache are white, his loose robe a dark red brocade bordered with ermine. His right PORTRAIT OF A MAN By Tintoretto IRoom H£\ — Saia 6t paoio Veronese 223 hand holds a white handkerchief or scarf. Pier- cing eyes look out from under shaggy brows, and give life and thought to an otherwise heavy and ordinary face. Andrea Cappello, another Procurator of San Marco, is depicted richly dressed in a garnet gown, ermine-edged, with black hair and white beard and moustache, his body facing three-quarters to the right, his face turned full to the spectator. At the right is a column, on which is an escutcheon and the letter A, More noted is Battista Morosini, a canvas which is a study in gray greens. The figure is standing before a wall, three-quarters turned to the left, the gaze regardful, keen, the black hair and white beard and moustache making a strong contrast, and furnishing the only vigorous accents in this nearly one-toned picture. At his left is a green drapery, at the right a distant view of a landscape which carries out the green note of the composition. Beside the portraits in this room, there are many religious pictures by Tintoretto, most of which, however, do not show the master at his finest ex- pression. In one of these, the Virgin Enskyed with St. Cosmo and St. Damian in Adoration, there is to be found little real feeling, or any high conception of the requirements of a sacred composition. The 224 XLbe Brt of tbe IDentce Ecabents Madonna, herself, however, is wonderfully tender and lovely, despite her gigantic figure with its Michelangelesque strength and commandingness. Seldom did Tintoretto' succeed in expressing such womanly charm and beauty. Not less exquisite is the little Christ, leaning forward on her lap, gazing intently at the scene below. If this part of the pic- ture could be cut out and taken away from the lower mass, with its turbulent clouds and its ex- cited saints, it would undoubtedly be considered one of Tintoretto’s most inspired works. As it is, the composition is badly spotted, the saints are bent and twisted in an unexplained furor, and the whole thing strikes a strident, theatric note. In the upper left-hand corner sits Mary, on roll- ing clouds, her foot resting on the crescent moon. She, as well as the Child in her arms, is bent for- ward, looking at the two 1 saints, Cosmo and Damian, who kneel on the ground far below, at the right and left. The Madonna is so far above their heads that it is evident they have difficulty to see her at all. This necessitates such a strained position that they appear in momentary danger of falling backward. Between them and the Ma- donna, amidst a mass of clouds at the left, is St. Cecilia, her hand on her breast, her head lifted high in profile, gazing distractedly at the Madonna, her small pipe-organ on the clouds beside her. IRoorn Iff, — Sala M paolo Veronese 225 At the right are seen St. Theodore holding a stand- ard, and another saint pressing a child to his breast. St. Theodore is in full armour, and, with extended hand, seems presenting the two kneeling ones below to the Madonna. About in the sky are cherubim and seraphim. The colour of this picture is rather vivid, em- phasized by the masses of white clouds, and the lighting, as well as the action of the figures, is positively violent in its contrasts and movements. The Madonna with Sts. Theodore, Sebastian, and Mark Adored by Three Senators reveals the Madonna sitting at the top of a low flight of steps, holding Jesus on her knees, with St. Joseph behind her. On a step at the left is St. Sebastian, sitting, pierced with arrows, arms bound to a pillar. On the other side are St. Theodore, in armour, and St. Mark below him. Before this group in the foreground kneel the three senators, one of whom is spokesman, and back of them, at the right of the composition, are their attendants with the bags of gold. A portico with three rows of pillars is at the left, behind, a landscape at the right. The three senators are marvels of portraiture, executed, it seems certain, with a fidelity of obser- vation that leaves no doubt of their faithfulness to life. The Madonna has a noble figure, with un- 226 Ube Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabem>? idealized face, but with dignity and stateliness of bearing. The Pieta is an impressive, nobly conceived com- position, full of a weird, unplaceable light that em- anates from one knows not where. The chiaros- curo is powerfully treated, the strong light on the dead Saviour’s body and the Madonna’s face bal- ancing with dramatic intensity the deep shadows flung over the others in the scene, as well as the impenetrable depths in the landscape that serves as background. In this representation of the De- position, Tintoretto has kept himself somewhat more in hand than usual with his impetuous nature. The only figure of the five here portrayed that can be accused of expressing emotion too violently is Mary Magdalen, and even she shows a certain amount of restraint in her grief. As a composition, its lines, massing, and chiaroscuro are masterly. At the foot of the ladder, leaning against the cross, Mary has been sitting, the body of her sac- rificed Son across her knees. The moment por- trayed shows her fallen back, fainting from her agony of grief, into the arms of a woman, who is leaning tenderly over her. At the same time a disciple standing behind the two has just caught Jesus under his arms, preventing his falling to the ground. Behind all these in the centre, Mary Magdalen is shown, leaning over the group, her IRoom If. — Sala M paoio Veronese 227 arms spread wide in terror and despair. The land- scape is bathed in darkness, with only a glimmer in sky or on the distant plain to break the mystery of gloom. With his customary ignoring of the traditions, Tintoretto has shown here no emaciated, thin- chested Christ. The dead 'man’s figure is noble in its strength, with beautifully modelled arms, chest, and legs, the concentration of light that sweeps so irresistibly over it emphasizing the per- fection of the superb physique. Still more affecting and remarkable is the Cru- cifixion, a much smaller canvas than the great one in San Rocco. In parts it seems only a variation of that in the Scuola, but it has figures and inci- dents of its own that are worthy of highest praise, even if one cannot quite follow Ruskin in his eulogium of it. The canvas was painted for the Church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, and it is gener- ally titled Tintoretto’s second Crucifixion. In the centre in the foreground, at the foot of the cross, which with its burden rears far above, is a group of women about Mary, who is prostrate, half-insensible in her grief. At the left are other women and a child, paying scant attention to the cross, and still farther, at one side, a standard- bearer with flying flags. Beyond are Jews and Romans, some on horseback, others on foot. At 228 ube Brt ot tbe tPenice Bcabentp the right is a knight, mounted on a white horse, whose plunges would seem to be in danger of throwing him out of the canvas. The knight is supposed to< be a portrait of Tintoretto himself. This spirited horse with its rider has received more unstinted praise than any other part of the picture. Never before, it has been said, has there been shown on canvas such a horse as that. Below this charger, in front, three men are doubled up over a game of dice, so entirely absorbed that they see neither the agony about them nor the plunging animal near. In this composition, the crosses bearing the two thieves are placed in profile on either side of Jesus. The twisted, contorted limbs and terror of face and figure of the two malefactors are sharply contrasted with the sunken head, the quiet suffering, that al- lows not so much as the quiver of a muscle, of the Man of Sorrows. He does not even pay the slight- est attention to the two executioners who are de- scending the ladder which is placed against the cross. The sky is dark, and over all is an atmos- phere of bluish gray that gives a strange, myste- rious aspect tO' the whole scene. As in the San Rocco Crucifixion, Tintoretto has shown his usual disregard for all traditions as to the manner of presenting the scene. The vast crowd of the populace exhibit the indifference or IRoont Uf, — Sala M paolo IDeronese 229 the merely superficial interest that would be natural to such a gathering. Only the immediate followers of Jesus himself are depicted as feeling any real sorrow, or even realizing the meaning of this Cru- cifixion. This fidelity to what must have been the actual state of things, gives by its very reality a greater pathos and deeper sense of tragedy. The Madonna with Three Saints and Three Treasurers is really a portrait group much more than it is a religious picture. In it are seen all the great attributes that Robusti possessed as portrait- painter. The earnestness, solidity, the insight into character, the power to make these likenesses fairly teem with life, joined to a restraint, a sobriety, a simple honesty, all are characteristics of Tintoretto as a delineator of the men of Venice, and all are found in both this and another canvas of like nature, St. Justina and Three Senators with their Secretaries. Here are six portraits of men of varying years, from the white-bearded secretary who is gazing so curiously, almost defiantly, at the saint, to the mere boy whose head peers above his. The three treasurers in front, who stand in a rather stiff line across the foreground, are all men of early middle life, and, in spite of their similar positions and almost identical cut of beard and hair, they are three distinct and firmly characterized portraits of 230 ZTbe Brt of tbe Dentce Bcabemp three different personalities. The positions of their hands, all six of which Tintoretto rather unwisely allowed to show beneath their robes of state, are the least excellent part of the composition. St. Justina, mounted on a rock at the right, standing above them, is a majestic woman, with the grand lines and full modelling of a figure by Michelangelo. She is lifting out her yellow mantle as if to shield the three secretaries beneath its folds. The Woman Taken in Adultery is also' in this room, and has been considered one of Tintoretto’s greatest works. The portraitlike character and the splendid massing of the many heads so nearly on a line, the management of the chiaroscuro, and the beauty and tenderness of the woman with the child, are certainly all Tintoretto at his best. But the face of Jesus is as certainly very unsatisfactory, with little of real nobleness or beauty. The woman who has been brought to be condemned is hardly more successful. She has little about her to call for comment except a sort of silly prettiness that might go with the supposed weakness of her character. Much more of power and character-drawing is shown in the man who' leads her forward, called by some her deceived husband. His bowed figure and lined, troubled face are well worthy of the painter, than whom no one better portrayed mid- dle-aged men. The young mother, who stands at IRoom — M paolo Veronese 231 the left of these two drawing her small boy close to her as if to shield him from all harm, is much finer in face and expression than most of Tin- toretto’s women. The delicate oval of her face, the lovely curves of lip, the shadowed eyes, the forehead off which the hair grows so prettily, all proclaim her right to be called beautiful. Her tender air of loving motherhood and the sadness in her expression add still more to the charm of her personality. The picture is a long panel, showing the figures little more than half-length. At the right Jesus sits, his body to the left, his head turned to the right toward an old man standing in profile next him. Before him is the youthful sinner, pushed forward by the middle-aged man, who' may be her husband. She wears a crimson-brocaded waist, a yellow fichu, a green skirt, and a white head-dress. The man is in a rose-coloured mantle that falls in big, clumsy folds about him. The mother and child are at his left, and back of these is the crowd of disciples and listeners. Most of Veronese’s works in the Academy are in Room 9, which, in honour of him, is called Sala di Paolo Veronese. Of them all by far the most famous is the Feast in the House of Levi. But of the others there are many that in part or whole show the master not far from his highest. 232 Zfte Hrt of tbe Venice Bcabemp The two panels representing the four apostles were once, it is said, four corners in a ceiling deco- ration in S. Niccolo della Luttuga, of which deco- ration the People of Mira Going to Meet St. Nich- olas, now also in this room, was the central panel. The apostles are splendidly posed, and are sharply individualized, John on his eagle being particularly interesting, with his youthful, vigorous face and figure. A beautiful golden-haired angel is kneeling beside St. Matthew, reading from a scroll, which they both hold. The graceful lines of his drapery and contour are marred by a rather heavy left leg. The People of Mira is a round canvas sur- rounded by the heavy stucco framing of the ceil- ing, and is chiefly remarkable for the vigour of action and curious, but excellent, placing of the eight middle-aged men against the sky. The four pictures representing scenes from the life of St. Christina, who, in spite of divers tortures, refused to return to the worship of the heathen gods of her father, are painted in the silvery key that is Veronese’s own, and, though they are pic- tures of a decidedly worldly and beautiful Venetian woman of Veronese’s time rather than of a pale and suffering martyr, they have the atmospheric clearness, the transparence of colour, and the sim- ple realism characteristic of the painter. In some IRoont Iff* — Sala M Paolo Veronese 233 of them there is a superabundance of drapery with an exaggeration of gesture that recalls Paolo’s fol- lowers rather than himself. The Crucifixion in this room, which Ruskin said ought to be taken down and burned, does not com- pare even remotely with the same subject by Vero- nese in the Louvre, and it does seem to merit some of the stringent condemnation that others beside the Englishman of letters have bestowed upon it. It is to be conceded that unless a picture represent- ing the Crucifixion has within itself elements of tragic passion, of religious fervour, and of unmis- takable and deep feeling, it has no excuse for being. If it be simply an excellent portrayal of plein air , of figures of handsome men and women, making a more or less successful grouping and composition, then the three crosses might better be eliminated, or changed to something else, and a new title ap- pended to the picture. Atmospheric feeling, fine colour, natural and inevitable grouping, Veronese could hardly fail to achieve. But it is easy to be- lieve that the sombreness and tragedy of the Great Sacrifice were opposed to his sunny, light-hearted nature, and it is only occasionally, as in the one in the Louvre, that he does show unexpected pathos and true depths of feeling. In this in the Academy the foreground and actual centre of interest is taken up by a group 234 Ube Hrt of tbe Venice Bcabem# of executioners sitting on the ground in evident fright and terror at the approaching storm, and by a cavalier mounted on a prancing steed. In the middle of the second plane is seen a crowd of men, women, and children, some on foot, some mounted, rushing away in a panic from the scene. At the right, entirely unmoved, sitting by a fountain, are some women. Only at the left, really almost in the distance, are the three crosses. An executioner mounted on the ladder is about to nail the inscrip- tion over the head of Christ. At the foot of the cross are the Magdalen, a beautiful figure rather theatrically posed, the centurion kneeling with his pike over his shoulder, and, fainting in the arms of her women, the Mother. Undoubtedly this portion of the picture is not the most important part of it, compositionally con- sidered, and thus, from artistic as well as religious reasons, it can be condemned. The Assumption of the Virgin is a circular- topped, tall panel, showing the Virgin with angels and cherubs in the clouds, and below, the open tomb with the affrighted apostles gathered around it. This was painted for the high altar of Santa Maria Maggiore. The colouring is both strong and delicate, cold and transparent. The group below of apostles and friends is firmly, almost brutally ex- pressed in its deep and resonant tones, while the IRoom !£♦ — ©ala 01 Paolo Veronese 235 heavenly vision above has an airy lightness and translucent brilliance that admirably suggests the vast difference between these celestial dwellers and the earth-born ones below. The varying attitudes and expressions of the wondering and fearing disciples are superbly dis- played without the exaggeration of which Tin- toretto was so often guilty. Mary, whose billow- ing folds of white mantle are held up by two charm- ing, wide-winged angels, is a radiant vision, but hardly remarkable for her spirituality of expres- sion. Especially lovely are the two tiny baby an- gels clasping her knees, one entirely back to, the other in profile, his round, earnest little face turned three-quarters out to the spectator. Myriads of cherubs circle about the group, while slightly below are three delightful little angels playing on musical instruments. Altogether it is rather fuller of re- ligious feeling than usual with Veronese. Unfor- tunately, however, it is much restored. A not dissimilar composition is the Virgin in Glory. In the sky, in the midst of a silvery, golden cloud, is Mary, holding on her knees the Child, who is leaning forward, watching the scene taking place below. Here is St. Dominick on a low, marble platform, distributing roses which an angel kneel- ing beside him is presenting. On each side is a kneeling concourse of dignitaries, among whom are 236 Ube Hrt ot tbe IDenice Eeabem^ seen an emperor, a Pope, a doge, a cardinal, all waiting for the holy flowers. Back of them is a blossoming hedge. The Virgin has a sweet serenity of expression, but the greatness of the picture lies in its fore- ground group, where every face and figure seem a living portrait. The panel was painted for the Society of the Rosary at S. Pietro Martire de Murano. The Battle of Lepanto, or of Curzolari, as it is called, is a glorification of the fight at sea when the Turks were defeated by Don John of Austria in 1571. The whole lower half of the canvas shows a very forest of masts and yard-arms rising above the crowding galleys so huddled and jammed that it is impossible to distinguish Turk from Christian. This portion is very dark and roughly painted. Dark streaks, rays of light, and burning arrows are descending from heaven on to these fighting sea- men. Above in the clouds are seen the Madonna listening to the pleas of the protecting saints of Venice, St. Peter, keys in hand, St. Roch with his staff, St. Justina, crown on her head and a poignard in her hand, and St. Mark with his lion by his side. Back, at the right, are a choir of angels, and a single one, who is sending the flaming arrows downward. This is curious rather than beautiful, though the IRoom If* — ©ala M paoio IDetonese 237 angels and Mary have a delicacy of form and col- our tellingly contrasted with the battle-bathed ships below. The Coronation of the Virgin is another subject which was a favourite with the Italian painters, but which Veronese was less fitted to portray than most of the artists of the Renaissance. Of the one in this room, Sir Charles Eastlake says, “ Colour, design and technical skill of execution seem wasted upon this large work, which but for the sacred title it has might be compared to the transforma- tion scene in a theatrical extravaganza.” Above in a glory, kneeling on clouds, is the Ma- donna, dressed in a white robe embroidered with blue, a yellow mantle falling ofif her shoulders up- held by two kneeling angels. Behind and over her are, at the left, Jesus, represented as a young man, and God the Father, a white-bearded, heav- ily robed old man, the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove over them, and all about, partly lost in the glory of light, unnumbered cherubs. Immediately below this group is another, in which are seen a Pope, King David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, St. Andrew, St. Peter, and other apostles, and farther back in the light a crowd of women. Be- low these comes still a third assemblage, wherein are St. Paul, St. Jerome, St. Clara, St. Cecilia, 238 TLhc Ert of tfoe IDenice Ecafcem# St. Lucy, St. Catherine, the four Evangelists, St. Lawrence, and many other women. Here Veronese has clothed his blessed in the richest robes of patrician Venice, and, with the ex- ception of the angels attending Mary, there is little to suggest the celestial subject. Mary herself has a sweetness of expression that is of a doll-like prettiness, instead of being lofty or ideal. Through- out the picture there is vivid characterization, and, considering the subject, with its impossibilities of treatment, extraordinarily excellent and effective massing. The Annunciation is fairly vibrant with the col- our harmonies only Veronese knew how to obtain. The silvery tones of the marble, the transparence of the light, clear colours of costume and sky, the splendour of architecture, the atmosphere that fills every part of the scene and surrounds the figures like an invisible yet fully felt envelope, — all this is Veronese’s own particular domain, a domain in which he seems to reign alone. In a gorgeous vestibule of a marble palace, the Virgin is seen at the extreme right, just rising from a prie-dieu. With hand on breast she is turning to the left, gazing with a mixture of sur- prise and joy toward the angel of the Annunciation, who is approaching from the other end of the hall. Nearer the centre, over one of the marble pillars, By Paolo Veronese IRoom If*— Saia M paolo Veronese 239 the dove of the Holy Ghost appears in a blaze of light. Courts with arcades and columns open be- yond this first vestibule, giving, in the distance, a glimpse of a chapel with trees and sky. The angel, whose wings are red and green, is dressed in a yellow and orange-coloured robe which is twisted and flying about him as if blown by the rapidity of his flight. The whole posture and movement of his figure are indicative of swift and unhindered rush through the air. Mary is not overexpressive in face or figure. There is more than a hint of heaviness in each, but the clear bril- liance of her flesh-tones and the soft light of her eyes make her a pleasing example of the type of woman Veronese chose oftenest to paint. The Feast at the House of Levi hangs at one end of the gallery, and, seen through the door from the next room, its atmospheric reality is so ex- traordinary that it seems as if one were looking at a real scene taking place before one’s very eyes. This marvellous power of portraying actuality is one of the greatest attributes of Veronese. Though the picture here is of less size than the famous Marriage at Cana in the Louvre, it is nevertheless an enormous canvas, holding about fifty life-size figures. The setting for the scene is a marble loggia, or portico, divided into three arcades separated by grained marble Corinthian 240 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabent£ columns and pilasters. Beyond are seen the white palaces and towers of a possible Venice, and be- yond all the pulsating blue of the Venetian sky. At the right and left in the foreground a marble balustrade marks a flight of steps that lead down- wards. Through the centre of the gallery runs a damask-covered table, and about it are seated the many guests at supper. In the centre, facing, is Jesus, turned to his left, speaking with John, who, dressed in red and blue, is next him. At Jesus’ right is Peter, clad in rose and gray, and at the moment helping himself from the dish in front of him. These are the only disciples positively to be recognized. But all down the long line of table are Venetian guests en fete. Crowds of servitors are about, some waiting on the feasters, some on the steps, some climbing on the wall for better view. It is a gay gathering, and even in its present shape scarcely conforms to one’s idea of the meal which the Son of Man took in the house of the Levite. As Veronese first painted it, it was even further removed from that idea. For, though among the assemblage are still visible a clown tor- mented by a negro boy, a dog sitting gravely back to, and servants slyly drinking the wine from the goblets, worse, or more amusing, incidents, which Veronese originally introduced, he was obliged to paint out. This was the picture which, in 1573, FEAST AT THE HOUSE OF LEVI By Paolo Veronese IRoom ff* — Sala bi Paolo Veronese 241 brought him before the officers of the Inquisition. It was painted for the Convent of SS. Giovanni e Paolo to replace Titian’s Last Supper, which had been destroyed by fire. The churches and church- men of Venice had never been over scrupulous as to the requirements of a religious picture. Providing it was good art, and could be given some sort of Bib- lical or churchly title without too blazing anachro- nism, they were generally sufficiently satisfied. But this great, glowing, sunlit Venetian feast, with clowns and buffoons and monkeys and German drunkards, — one of these latter heretics shown actually stanching a bleeding nose in the presence of the Lord ! — this was really too much ! Besides, it was desirable to show the world, and Spain, that Venice was no lukewarm Catholic. Her pious ob- jections to' such a fine big picture as that would surely be heralded with much eclat, and might cover up some other heresies more essential to Venetian comfort! Paolo’s answers to his inquisitors are proof con- clusive of his own point of view. That point of view was never what was always Mr. Ruskin’s. As a matter of convenience to his patrons, and because it was the custom, Veronese was quite will- ing to adopt any name for a picture given him. But as for making his picture suit the ethical, moral, or spiritual requirements, the story-telling 242 Ube Brt ot tbe Venice Bcabem^ demands of that title — that was another matter. He must needs fill up his canvas as seemed best to him, a painter. And a painter, good lords, has little to do — had ever better have less to do — with morals on his canvases. In his last excuses he reminded his judges that he was but following illustrious examples, and that even Michelangelo, in his Last Judgment, on the walls of the Pope’s chapel in Rome, had represented all the sacred personages nude. Whereupon the court asked if he thought that was a proper thing to do. After which Veronese washed his hands of the whole affair, and said simply, and probably with weari- ness of spirit at the trivialities of the proceeding, “ My very illustrious lords, I had not taken such matters into consideration. I paint with such study as is natural to me and as my mind can compre- hend.” But he had to* paint out his German and his monkey and other objectionable spots within the space of three months, and at his own expense. If they had locked him up, these prudent inquisitors, they might have had to wait long before he could finish such another glowing scene as this ! Though it still remains true that this princely banquet suggests little of the pious or the Biblical, either in its ensemble or in many of its parts, nevertheless Veronese has portrayed here a nobler Christ than have many of the so-called religious IRoom If.— Saia fct jpaolo Veronese 243 painters. The calm beneficence of that untroubled face does not dwell amidst lines of weakness and puerility. If not the head of the Son of Man as only the inner thought knows him, or even as Rem- brandt has portrayed him, it has a beauty and an impressiveness that linger long in the memory. Of the picture as a picture, not as an illustration for story or verse, it can only be said to be one of the amazing products of an astounding art. Noth- ing truer, more living, more naturally diverse, more individually and actually existing than these half- hundred painted figures can be imagined, save an actual living concourse of just such people in just such a palace, under just such a blue Venetian sky. And then, if the living and the simulated could be compared, would not the picture carry off the palm for beauty? To pick out any two or three figures from the rest is like making invidious comparisons. But did one ever see in any hostelry quite such a perfect figure of “ Mine Host ” as he in gay-coloured stripes leaning against the pillar at the right? His fat jollity is assuredly a cure for all blues that rise from a sour outlook on the world. And the Venetian steward on the left, who is giving orders with so grand an air, did any one ever catch so truly the very spirit of the “ High Born Butler ” ? But it is not the figures only, nor yet the pearly, graceful 244 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabemp architecture, nor even the gleaming of the Adriatic sky. It is all of these, and it is something more : it is the art that is under and through and over all. It is the consummate mastery of line and form and colour and light that makes the marvel. It is an art as modern as to-day, and it was the art of a man who lived over three centuries ago. In all the Renaissance it stands by itself. For it was not the art of Titian, of Bellini, of Michelangelo, of Tintoretto : it was the man Veronese's own, and if it did not have some of the things the art of these other men held, it had others, perhaps in their way as great. And as art, painter’s art, it may almost be called supreme. Most of the remaining pictures in this room, ex- cellent as many of them are, and at times showing better workmanship than some of these already mentioned, are by men whose art was far removed from the “ grand style ” of the greater men of the Renaissance, these men of whom Veronese was the latest born. Of these younger and smaller men, the Venetian “ little masters,” the three members of the Bassano family are among the most note- worthy. Most of their pictures which are in the Academy are in Rooms n and 14, but both Jacopo and Leandro Bassano have a number in Sala di Paolo Veronese. The founder of the family, or school, as it might IRoont Iff* — Sala M ffmolo Veronese 245 better be termed, was Jacopo da Ponte, called Bassano from his birthplace at the base of the Cadore Alps. He began his artistic career by studying the works of Titian and Bonifazio in Venice, and at first painted in their manner. But soon returning to' his native town, his own indi- viduality gradually dominated his style of expres- sion, and he began the production of those genre pieces which in a way recall the Dutch school. Later in life his scheme of chiaroscuro, his forced shadows and brilliant lights suggest Rembrandt. He painted the homely scenes and details he found about him, sometimes making them accessory to Scriptural compositions, sometimes merely using them for backgrounds for incidents taken from the daily life of the people. He even at times omitted figures altogether, showing interiors with kitchen utensils, a cat and a dog, or still life, somewhat in the spirit of the French Chardin. “ He throws a lucid gray over his landscape,” says Kugler, “ and carries the eye to the solemn twilight spread along the distant horizon.” “ His colours are . . . gemlike, especially his greens, where he exhibits a brilliancy peculiar to himself. Occasionally also he is seen in silvery tones of great charm.” Berenson says of him, that “ without knowing it, and therefore without intending it, Bassano was ! 246 TTbe Brt of tbe \Dentce Bcabetn^ the first Italian who tried to paint the country as it really is, and not arranged to look like scenery.” He was in this way the predecessor of the land- scape-painters of to-day. In place of the grand style of the golden age of the Renaissance which was far below his attainments, he had a homely, piquant charm, full of life, vivacity, and colour, and, be it remarked, infinitely nearer the compre- hension of the people of his town and time than the greater art of his predecessors. His two sons, Francesco and Leandro, followed closely in his steps and their works have frequently been confounded with their father’s. All were skilful painters of genre and of landscape, and Leandro, especially, was a brilliant portrait-painter. All had the glowing, “ gemlike ” colour, which, in many of their works, has lasted unchanged till to- day; all had a feeling for atmosphere, for light and shade, that gives their homeliest works a poetic charm that connoisseurs have greatly praised. Two of Leandro’s best works in the Academy, the Resurrection of Lazarus and the portrait of Doge Marcantonio, are in Room 9. The first of these is one of the most noted of his large religious compositions. After his early years Jacopo gen- erally painted only small figures. Leandro, how- ever, often chose large canvases, with the figures even over life-size. He kept the style, neverthe- By Jacopo Bassano IRoom — M Paolo IDeroneae 247 less, which he had acquired under his father’s tutelage, showing great fondness for introducing animals and all sorts of commonplace details, as well as for brilliant contrasts of light and shade. The composition of this picture has been criti- cized as being somewhat mechanical in the ar- rangement of the figures, but the figures themselves are painted with great intelligence and considerable variety, though, taken individually, they might, as has been suggested, be transferred to some other and totally different scene without loss of mean- ing, which is an indication of what is generally true with the entire family of the Bassani. They care far more for the mise en scene , for the gen- eral effect of the whole, for the play of light and shade, for the charm of well- juxtaposed colours, than for individual dignity, character, or expres- sion of the figures making the composition. It is a state peculiar to the time rather than to them. And it does not, somewhat paradoxically, hurt Leandro’s powers as a painter of portraits. While he rarely gets “ below the skin,” his feeling for the picturesque, his power of copying nature with ex- traordinary exactitude, and his love of colour and ability in the treatment of chiaroscuro, make him one of the best portrait-painters of his era, and far ahead of most of those who came after him. It is said that his father used the invention of his son 248 Ube Brt ot tbe IDenice Bcabemp Francesco in the composition of his Biblical scenes, and the hand of Leandro when he had a portrait to paint. Coming back to the picture once more, Jesus is seen standing in profile at the left of the tomb some distance from the foreground, his hand lifted in benediction, his eyes fixed on Lazarus, who is being lifted by two men from the sepulchre. They are removing the grave-wrappings from him, and, as he half-sits on the edge of the tomb, he is mostly nude. There is a pallid languor about his form, a weakness and inertness that remarkably express the state of one only half-awakened from the slum- bers of eternity. Mary Magdalen kneels at the left of the tomb, dressed in richest robes of red and green, her expression as well as her voluptuous figure scarcely suggesting the repentant sinner. At the right a woman with a child beside her is placing a basket on the ground, and behind, on all sides, are crowds of interested spectators. In the left-hand lower corner, only part of his figure showing, is a young, richly attired man, supposed to be Leandro himself. A fair example of Leandro’s powers as portrait- painter is the portrait of Doge Marcantonio Memmi. The Venetian is sitting in a crimson- covered chair in the robes of his office, a cap on his head, an ermine mantle over a brilliant orange- IRoom Iff* — £ala hi ©aolo Veronese 249 coloured tunic. The background is sage green. The doge is turned three-quarters to the left, has a long white beard, and his eyes are small and keen, quite in keeping with his shrewd, observant countenance. The real talent of men like the Bassani is never more apparent than when comparing their work with that of such painters as Benedetto and Carlo Cagliari, Palma Giovane, and others, who, without the genius of the great masters of the Renaissance, attempted to imitate their style and manner. The Bassani, by developing their own individuality and rigorously abstaining from abject copying of the greater men who preceded them, have left an in- finitely more valuable heritage to the world than these others who simply tried to mould themselves on the pattern set by the giants of the Renaissance. Benedetto Cagliari, brother of the great Paolo, and Carlo, or Carletto, his son, are both repre- sented at the Academy. Benedetto, who was a skilful draughtsman, and was always of great as- sistance to Paolo, with Carletto helped Veronese paint the ceiling-picture of the Assumption, now in Room 4. In Room 9, Benedetto has the Last Sup- per and Christ Before Pilate. He was a past master in perspective, and to his aid is due much of the perfection of the architectural backgrounds of Paolo’s famous pictures. It was not till after 250 Ube Brt ot tbe IDemce Bcabein^ the death of his brother that Benedetto began to work for himself. The Last Supper is but a feeble imitation of Paolo, and with its two subjects, the Supper and the Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, has a divided interest that detracts from the compositional unity. Christ Before Pilate shows the Master, dressed in a red robe, bound and dragged forward under a portico by a soldier and four executioners. Be- fore him, at the left, sitting on a throne raised high, is Pilate. By his side are an old man, two women, and a page reading a paper. At the right is a crowd, and one of the leaders, a man standing back to, in a green robe, yellow cloak, and lilac turban, is pointing out the prisoner to the others pressing about him. Near by are a horse held by the bridle and a standard-bearer. M. Blanc says that here the gestures of Paolo degenerate into mere theatric mimicry, and that Paolo’s very virtues are con- verted into faults. The pillars and line of palaces in the distance show Benedetto’s best work. Christ, though weak, is not without some beauty of face and expression. Carletto Cagliari has a number of works here, the most important, perhaps, being the Way to Calvary. It shows Jesus, fainting under the weight of the cross, with Veronica kneeling beside him, offering her handkerchief to wipe away the sweat IRoom !£♦ — Sala M paoio Veronese 251 of agony. The picture has some interesting faces, and shows the technical accomplishment of its painter. But it is, after all, nothing but a copy of the style of the masters under whom Carletto had studied. In general, it may be said of most of his canvases here what a French critic has said of him, that his composition is colder than his father’s, his pencil less delicate, because it is less sure, his colour sharper, less light; but he does show some charm- ing heads, and excellent good taste and a decided feeling for the picturesque. Giacomo Negretti, called Palma Giovane, the grandnephew of Palma Vecchio, was born in 1544, and died in 1628. He it was who set the wheel of the Decadence in Venice going fast and furious. Though he has been called the last painter of the golden age, it is truer, as has also been said, that he was the first of the Decadence. After studying at Urbino and Rome the works of the greatest masters, he returned to Venice and rapidly ac- quired the reputation of a painter of high talent, a reputation due, perhaps, to the rapidity of his execution rather than to any inherent greatness in conception. It is true that he often has detail of great beauty in his pictures, and some of his heads are lovely. Especially are his works in the Oratory of the Crucifix worthy of real admiration. After the death of Veronese and Tintoretto, Palma was 252 Zfte Brt of tbe IDentce BcabeniE left supreme in Venice. Molmenti says of him, that in his long life of eighty-four years, with his deplorable rapidity of execution, the violently dra- matic gestures of his figures, he threw the art of painting into mere mannerism and opened the way to the delirium of the seventeenth century. He has a long list of works at the Academy, some of them among his best, but all showing more or less the exaggeration into which he sank ever deeper and deeper. It was as if by his forced, violent gestures, by his billowing robes, and by the crowd- ing and abandonment of action of his figures, he purposely attempted to lead the attention away from the lack of high conception and careful exe- cution. The Triumph of Death, in this room, is one of his best-known canvases in the Academy. It is a very orgy of drunken disaster. On the right sits St. John, clad in a red robe with yellow mantle, writing in a big book before him. He has paused in his task and turned his head over his shoulder, gazing fixedly at the vision which he sees enacted before his eyes. Out of a dragon’s mouth, along with fire and smoke comes the strangest procession. First are three knights in armour on galloping, snorting steeds, and behind them Death, in the form of a skeleton, riding a wild white horse, his scythe in his hands, mowing his victims as he IRoorn II |\ — Sala bi paolo Veronese 253 rides. Below these, thrown headlong under the trampling feet, are kings, emperors, beautiful women, the pride of the world vanquished for ever. This was one of the four panels which Palma painted for the Scuola Grande of S. Giovanni Evangelista, representing four visions of the Apoca- lypse. The one called the Choice of the Twelve Hundred, in the same room, depicts the angel of the Lord marking the chosen with a cross. This shows a vast number of friars among the blessed, a natural placing, as the picture was ordered by a Fraternity! Bearing a less distinguished name, but evincing really greater talent, is Padovanino', the painter of the Marriage Feast at Cana in this room. It is Signor Molmenti who says that while Vene- tian art, like a dethroned sovereign, was daily growing weaker and weaker in the city that had viewed her greatest majesty, now and again, in the Venetian provinces would be signs of an art more alive, with more noble tendencies. Verona, for instance, was the home of Dario Varotari, born in 1539, a painter who studied with fervour the works of Veronese, and who left in that city and various near-by towns examples of his own which have grace of line and charm of pencil. Alessandro Varotari, his son, called Padovanino in honour of his birthplace, was born in 1590, and 254 Ube Ert of tbe Dentce Ecabemp was even more richly endowed artistically than his father. Signor Molmenti does not hesitate to' call him the Master of the Venetian School of his cen- tury. Other critics assign him a less exalted posi- tion, styling him rather a weak imitator of Titian. But considering the decadent state of art in his day, it is not too great praise to say that he ranked high in a school composed mostly of mediocrities! Padovanino lived in Venice and while there he studied assiduously the works of Titian, accom- plishing several very splendid copies. In his own canvases he makes a distinct and not unsuccessful attempt to imitate the great master in his group- ing, in the positions of his figures, and in his colour schemes. And yet, he did attain, finally, a style and a colour really his own, even if founded on assiduous imitation of others. His contours are delicate, his draperies full and free in fold, and in all his best works there is shown a nobility of posture, a beauty of face and form that are not, after all, spoiled because, here and there, are most apparent evidences of direct copying of this or that famous painter. M. Charles Blanc says that he may be regarded “ as a feminine Titian,” thus recognizing his grace and charm as well as his more or less servile imitation. He was, acknowl- edges this same critic, so free from the affectations and mannerisms of his time, that in viewing his IRoom Iff* — Sala bt Paolo Veronese 255 works the spectator is transported to the days of Titian, of Zelotti, and Veronese. The Marriage Feast at Cana is undoubtedly his masterpiece. It recalls, of course, in treatment as well as subject, the great canvas of Paolo Veronese. There is in it, however, no abject imitation, and Padovanino has chosen also an entirely different arrangement of composition. The scene takes place out-of-doors before a marble palace whose terraced marble steps and pillars of the entrance-portico are seen at the extreme right. The table, instead of being placed horizontally across, as with Vero- nese, is slightly at the left of the picture, and ex- tends straight back into the distance. It leaves the narrow, unoccupied end in the immediate fore- ground. By this arrangement Jesus, who sits at the left, is brought into far greater prominence than in Veronese’s. Next him is Mary, and opposite are the bride and groom. The rest of the guests fill both sides of the table beyond these four. At the right a group of musicians are furnishing en- tertainment for the feast, while in the foreground between them and the married couple a half-nude serving-man is pouring wine from a jar. At the left, and placed here and there on both sides of the table, are young serving-girls, clad in bright- toned flowing robes. Critics have complained that, as girls were never waitresses in Jerusalem in the 256 Uhc Brt of tbe IDenice Bcafcemp days of Jesus, he was guilty of an anachronism in depicting them as such. It is an anachronism, however, that does not seem unpardonable, con- sidering the usual freedom with which Venetian painters depicted historical and religious scenes ! A lame beggar, half-lying on the ground in front, slightly at the left of Jesus, is being tended as carefully as if he were one of the invited guests. Beyond the table in the centre is a Greek temple with lines of cypress-trees that stretch pointed, fingerlike, against the sky. The vacant end of the table, occupying almost the exact centre of the foreground, would be a bad break in the composi- tion if Padovanino had not filled it so admirably with the majestic figure of a woman. She is stand- ing nearly back to, with her figure turned toward Jesus, her head twisted to the right. Her right hand is pointing to the Master, and she seems to be directing to his assistance the maids standing behind the bridal pair. The light strikes full on her bare shoulder and left arm, leaving her profile in the shadow that slips down her back, across her looped-up skirts. The poise of her finely built figure against the darker background, the splendid lines of her voluminous rose and green draperies, make her worthy, as many critics have not failed to note, of the brush of Titian himself. And in- deed, the whole picture, if in a gallery with fewer < £ < a - t - 1 o < c 9 (S' IRoom Iff* — Sala fci paolo Veronese 257 masterpieces, would rank as one of the chief gems of the collection. Here, it unquestionably suffers from the proximity of too many greater achieve- ments. But it has, nevertheless, very decided and high claims to artistic recognition. Its colour, if less glowing than the Venetian school produced at its highest expression, is pure, brilliant, sympa- thetic. Its lines of composition are forcible, grace- ful, and telling. The drawing and modelling and construction of the figures are full of life, surety, and ease. If less virile than a Tintoretto or a Veronese, it has a subtle tenderness that makes it wonderfully attractive. And the earnestness and sincerity of the painter’s purpose, the freedom from exaggeration and from mannerism, make it, for the epoch in which it was produced, a memorable work. CHAPTER XIII. ROOM X. — SALA DEI BONIFAZI According to Berenson, Cariani has at least one canvas in Room io, the portrait of a blond-haired man in full face, with reddish beard and moustache, black clothes, white shirt, black greatcoat lined with fur, and a black cap. His left hand is gloved, his right bare, carrying its glove and resting on a pedestal on which is the date MDXXVI. Accord- ing to Morelli, Cariani had great gifts as a por- trait-painter, and this, though not equal to some of his portraits, is sufficiently characteristic to give a not wholly inadequate idea of his ability. With the exception of the Holy Family, already described, in Room 7, all of the works by Palma Vecchio owned by the Academy are in the Sala dei Bonifazi. Of these the Peter Enthroned is possibly the best known. On a raised throne of coloured marble slabs sits Peter in full face, holding on his left knee the open Scriptures, in which he is pointing out a passage with his right forefinger. His head is tipped side- 258 ST. PETER ENTHRONED By Palma Vecchio IRoom £♦ — Sala Det Bontfaji 259 wise, his eyes are slightly downcast, his mouth under its moustache and beard has fallen into mournful curves, and his whole expression is one of melancholy introspection. Behind him is a flat red drapery held by an olive-branch which ap- parently suspends itself across a background of sky. At each side and slightly in front of the throne stands a saint, John the Baptist on the left, and Paul opposite. John is in a tunic of skins, with a mantle thrown over one shoulder. In his left hand he holds his tall, slender cross of reeds, about which is attached a scroll bearing a Latin inscription, while with his right he points to the lamb lying at the base of the throne. The model- ling and construction of this figure show a mar- vellous blending of vigour and delicacy, both car- ried to their fullest expression in the intent, mobile face with its smiling eyes and tender mouth. St. Paul, though less of a psychologic revelation, has a substantial and firm dignity of mien and an in- domitableness of poise scarcely less successfully indicated. Behind him are seen St. Titian of Oderzo and St. Justina, and back of John the Bap- tist are St. Mark and St. Augustine. The two women are very beautiful, with great sweetness of expression joined to a spirituality not too fre- quently seen in Palma's women. As a whole, the composition is one of power, pathos, and charm, 260 uhc Hrt of tbe IDenice Hcabem^ with a depth of feeling not so far below the won- derful Barbara. In colour it is glowing, golden, with a skilfully treated chiaroscuro' and fine ar- rangement of draperies. Christ and the Daughter of the Woman of Canaan has been much injured by restoration, and one at least of the disciples, he on the extreme right, has been almost entirely repainted. It is an oblong panel, showing Jesus standing in the midst of his disciples, his hand raised blessing the young woman who, supported by her mother, kneels before him. The figures are mostly half- length, and the hands of Jesus and his followers are very nearly on a level, straight across the can- vas. Yet so well-arranged are they in pose and so varied in character, and so full of life and action is the scene, that there is no feeling of monotony or lack of balance in the composition. All of the disciples, with possibly one exception, are repre- sented as men considerably beyond youth, several of them white-headed and bald. No two 1 are alike, however; each one is depicted with the individu- ality and vigour and precise characterization of actual portraiture. Christ is the least satisfactory of them all, for though his face shows sweetness, sympathy, and purity, it is deficient in strength, purpose, and real spirituality. Perhaps the most excellent bit of characterization about him is his CHRIST AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE WOMAN OF CANAAN (DETAIL) By Palma Vecchio IRoont — Saia £>et JBomfasi 261 left hand drawing his heavy robes about his loins. The fine lines of the wrist, the delicate shadows marking the long, slender fingers, the combined strength and grace in the tension of the grasp, would be splendid for Titian himself. Not less remarkable are the two women at the left. The daughter is kneeling, her lifted face in profile, her eyes full of trouble, her clasping hands and her entire attitude expressing agonized plead- ing. It is in the mother, however, that Palma showed himself greatest. She stands with her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, her head, with its white veil that falls about her neck and breast, raised beseechingly to the Master. Her mouth is open, and she is evidently telling her sorrows to the listening one. This is no fine Venetian society woman. In the strained cords at her neck, in her contracted brows, in her searching, begging eyes, Palma shows the throbbing heart of motherhood pleading for her child. That face alone would prove the height Palma could reach, and would be sufficient evidence that he was no mere follower of Titian and Giorgione. The colour of the pic- ture, though hurt by repainting and cleaning, is clear, brilliant, and full of light. The Portrait of a Woman has been credited to Palma Vecchio, but may be, as the official cata- logue states, by Cariani. It is a half-length por- 262 tlbe Brt ot tbe Dentce Bcabem$ trait of a fleshy, fair-haired woman, turned three- quarters to the left, the background a green cur- tain at the left and a landscape at the right. Her thick, puffed light hair comes on to her neck, which is bare as far as the heavy white chemisette gath- ered about her breast above her red gown. The soft, smooth handling, the rather immobile ex- pression, the eyes that, though large and open, seem to say little, suggest Palma as the painter rather than Cariani, especially as the latter almost always idealized his portraits of women sitters. The Assumption is thought to be an early work of Palma, if it be his at all. The Madonna, in a rose-coloured robe and blue mantle, is rising into the sky, with all about her a choir of angels play- ing on musical instruments. Her feet seem to rest on one of the winged messengers, her draperies are flying, her arm outstretched, her head bent sidewise. Below, on the ground gazing up with varying expressions of surprise, are the apostles. In the distance on a hill is a castle, and running down the path from it to join his companions, St. Thomas. The attribution of this picture is doubtful. The freedom and naturalism of draperies seem to hint of the hand of some modern painter, and the va- riety and movement of gesture do not recall Palma so much as a later Renaissance artist. The faces IRoorn — gala bet Bonttajt 263 have not great depth of expression, but the com- position is skilful, the figures full of life and power, and the handling, in spite of much repainting, vigorous and free. A painter, who out of Italy is scarcely known, is represented here by several canvases, one of which, at least, deserves to rank with many of the best works of the greatest Venetians. This is the St. Lorenzo Giustiniani by Pordenone, a man who in his time was a not unworthy rival of Titian him- self. Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone was born in 1483, and died in 1538. He imitated Giorgione in the early part of his career, and afterward came under the influence of Correggio, Titian, Raphael, and Michelangelo, acquiring, say Crowe and Caval- caselle, “ something from each of these masters without rising altogether to their level.” His works are to be found in many churches and pub- lic buildings in Pordenone, in Udine, Conegliano, Treviso, and Cremona. All have been much spoiled, some are actually covered with white- wash. It is as a fresco-painter that he is greatest. Kugler says of him that “ power of drawing and foreshortening, energetic action, warmth and breadth of colour, grand management of light, freedom of hand and dignity of conception all com- bine to place Pordenone in this walk of art (as a 264 Ube Brt of tbe Venice Hcabemg painter of fresco) on a level with his most famous contemporaries.” His work in this field left him apparently little time for oil-painting, and most of what he did accomplish in large canvases and altar-pieces is not up to his greatest achievements in fresco. In 1528 he went to Venice, where he became one of the most noted painters of his day. It has been claimed that Titian was so unfriendly that the younger painter always went armed to protect himself from any assaults that Titian might direct. Though such bitter animosity as this would indicate is extremely unlikely, it seems nevertheless to be true with Pordenone as with Tintoretto that the great man of Cadore had little appreciation either of them or of their works. In the beginning of Pordenone’s career, however, it is a well-authenticated fact that Titian gave him unstinted praise for his work, — but it was work which was not executed in Venice. On the whole Pordenone seems to have suffered from the hands of the art critics. Even when they acknowledge his power as a draughtsman, his brilliancy and charm as a colourist, his strength and originality as a painter of portraits, they al- ways assert emphatically that after all he never equals Titian. And this is usually stated in such a way that the really extraordinary talents of the man are allowed only half a chance for apprecia- IRoom — Sala bet JSontfa3t 265 tion. Until one has actually seen his greatest works, one is very apt to think of Pordepione as a mere second-rate imitator of the greatest masters. But it is well to remember that it is always one as great as Titian with whom Pordenone is com- pared. That mere fact is tremendously significant of the real and indisputable heights which he reached. Of the four works by him in the Academy the St. Lorenzo Giustiniani with St. John the Baptist and Other Saints is universally considered his mas- terpiece in oil-painting. Standing on a pedestal in front of a semidomed arch with mosaic ornamentation is St. Lorenzo, the first Patriarch of Venice. He is in a white sur- plice, his blue cap fitting closely about his head over his ears. In his left hand he holds a large, richly bound and clasped book, while his right is lifted in blessing. On each side of the pedestal, with their heads bent toward the Patriarch, are two figures, bonneted fin blue like their leader; and slightly more forward to the right is St. Bernard of Siena, carrying a thick book. Little of these three can be seen except their heads. Standing in front of one of the columns at the left of the arch is St. Augustine, in rich canonicals with mitre and crozier. He is in profile, his face lifted question- ingly to Lorenzo, while he points outward with 266 Ube Brt ot tbe Venice Hcabems his right forefinger. In front of him, in his monk- ish robes, kneels St. Francis, his hands that show the stigmata gesticulating nervously while he ap- parently converses in some perturbation with St. John the Baptist, who is opposite him, next St. Bernard. The Baptist is nude except for the furry skin that comes over one shoulder and partly covers his back and hips. He is leaning slightly forward, his left foot resting on a bit of carved marble, his left hand holding a book, on which is a little white lamb. His right hand is slightly lifted as if even while offering the lamb to St. Francis he is about to interrupt that saint’s eager, nervous remarks. One of the chief criticisms brought against this picture is the lack of any intellectual connection between the various members making the group of saints. There is no centre of interest, the critics have said, and no real life to the Santa Conver- sazione , which it is supposed to illustrate. It seems a rather puerile contention. Many of the so-called Holy Conversations of the Venetian painters show little or no intellectual or emotional connection between the figures brought more or less peremptorily together. If they make well- connected groups from a purely technical, compo- sitional point of view, that is generally all that can be expected. But here there is certainly more than ST. LORENZO GIUSTINIANI WITH ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND OTHER SAINTS By Pordenone IRoom £• — Sala t>ei Bontfasi 267 skilled massing, or clever management of figures in different positions. There certainly is a decided centre of interest. It does not take much reading into the picture, surely, to see that the discussion which is going on between St. Francis and St. John is the very thing which makes the group homogeneous. St. Augustine, in his turn, is call- ing the Patriarch’s attention to the two so ear- nestly discussing, while all the others are either listening, or watching St. Lorenzo for orders. As for St. Lorenzo himself, he it is who brings the differing, various minds together, for over all he has lifted his hand in benediction. It is as if he were standing for both Church and State, guarding safely each and all, whatever differences of opinion might exist. But whether the picture may or may not contain any ethical or spiritual meaning has really little to do with it as a product of the painter’s art. As a painting pure and simple must it stand or fall. And as a painting there are not many works in the Academy that equal it, fewer still that surpass it. Seen even among the masterpieces of Venetian art the colour scheme of this Pordenone is positively enthralling in its richness, its luminosity, its bril- I liance of contrasted tones, its whole glorious radi- I ance. St. John has been rightly condemned as be- ing far too gigantic for the rest of the figures of 268 z be Hrt of the Uentce Bcafcemy the composition. But who has ever better depicted beautiful, firm, full white flesh? Who has ever modelled with lighter, subtler, more imperceptible touches, such rounded planes? And if the con- struction of that well-knit, muscular, beautiful if huge figure is not up to Florentine standards, at least there are few Venetians that could better it. Great as is the colour appeal of the picture, still more remarkable is it for its fulness of life. Every figure in it has the variety, the strength, the indi- viduality, the intensity, of actual life. Those heads are as living, as real, as knowable as the doctors in Rembrandt’s Lesson in Anatomy. Life itself, it seems, could not make them more human, more spiritedly or more spiritually real. John, as is quite proper, is by far the most beautiful type. So beau- tiful, indeed, are the smooth brow, the deep, ques- tioning eyes, the finely curved nose, the soft yet firm lips, that one wonders if the hand that created him might not have given the world a Christ face worthy of its history. But if John is aesthetically the most satisfying and physically the most dominating, it is St. Lo- renzo himself who is intellectually the most supreme. There is no physical beauty in the drawn, tense lines of that narrow, pinched face, in the piercing, searching gleams of those sad eyes, in the tired but rigid determination of those thin, pressed lips. IRoom Sala Cet JBont(a3f 269 But there is mighty force, iron will, compelling power, and a spirit weary unto death. With the forehead of a seer and the chin of a man of action he overcomes as all such do 1 by the mere weight of his personality. And the more you look, the more you are certain that the old sacristan of the Madonna dell’ Orto is right. If that is not Dante, who' else could it be? Not less real, if portraying less extraordinary personalities, are the others. The argumentative, insistent, obhvious-to-everything-but-his-own-opin- ions St. Francis; the dreaming, ascetic St Ber- nard; the questioning, plain-spoken, direct St. Au- gustine, — all are expressed with a surety, a divination, that marks their creator one of the great portrait-painters of the world. The Madonna del Carmelo, also by Pordenone, in this room, has been greatly damaged, and per- haps partly because of its condition has not re- ceived half the attention it deserves. Another reason for its neglect doubtless lies in its subject. The Madonna sheltering worshippers under her robes was a theme often used by the primitives, and the very nature of it was rather contrary to the spirit of the later Renaissance that required a more natural grouping, a placing of figures in surround- ings which would at least bear some relation to every-day existence. Whatever the reason for the 270 Ube art of tbe Dentce Hcabemg neglect, the picture is deserving of far better treat- ment. It was purchased by Canova in Rome, and adorned his chapel at Possagno. The Academy came into possession of it by exchange. The composition shows the Virgin standing on a pedestal against the clouds, her arms outstretched, her wide blue mantle held up by angels. Two saints, “ Beato ” Angelo and “ Beato ” Simon Stock, are at her sides, both dressed in monk’s garb. Members of the family of the Ottoboni are below, on each side, at the left five men, at the right a beautifully dressed woman and a little boy. In the centre, in a gallery that is lower than the foreground, is a monk, only half-visible, looking up in ecstatic prayer. The immediate foreground is occupied by the heads of the family, a man and a woman. There is none of the exaggeration of gesture here, of which Pordenone is sometimes guilty, nor is there any disproportion in the relative size of the figures. The whole composition is restrained, dignified, and remarkably graceful. Morelli re- marks of it that “ the portraits contained in this picture of some of the Ottoboni of Pordenone, the family for whom Giovanni Antonio executed this fine work in 1526, are worthy in my estimation to rank with the best portraits of all times.” IRoom £. — Sala fcei ®onifa3t 27 1 Pordenone’s Portrait of a Woman, also in this room, has, like the Ottoboni Madonna, been sadly repainted. Some of the noticeable Palmesque traits in it may be due to this restoration process. It is a portrait of a young, fair-haired woman, with square-cut, low, decollete waist of black, and a blue and yellow head-dress of most elaborate design. Her shoulders are wide and full, and her short neck is in line much like the type usual with Palma. She has large eyes, regular features, and is rather insipid in expression. The modelling, firm- ness of touch, and characterization make this a striking portrait and show Pordenone’s skill when he chose to depict single heads. The Bonifazio pictures are all in Room 10, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that nowhere else in the Academy does the visitor feel himself so steeped in a perfect splendour of colour. If in no other room, he realizes at least here the glory of Venetian painting. Before he has had time to analyze the pictures to see what types, what sort of subject, composition, or treatment these canvases hold, he is fairly carried off his feet by their mere radiance. There is an alluring softness to the glow- ing tones, a something subtle but penetrating that seems to enwrap the senses like a mysterious, haunting, Oriental perfume. After he has caught his breath, as it were, he begins, perhaps, to feel 272 tTbe Brt of tbe Uentce Bcabems that this very transcendence of colour may be in the nature of a magic spell, rendering him ob- livious to the weaknesses and faults of the canvases. For, it is generally true, as critics have remorse- lessly pointed out, Bonifazio was neither original in conception nor yet in execution. Nor did he ever create one type that is wholly his. And, though the ensemble is almost always charming and the details sometimes of positively extraor- dinary beauty, it is in the main simply truth that that higher something which does not even have to be searched for in the works of Raphael, Leo^ nardo, Michelangelo, Bellini, Titian, and Tintoretto, is not to be found with him at all. It is a truth, however, that in looking at such a picture as the Rich Man’s Feast, for instance, one neither re- members, or, remembering, believes ! In general, Bonifazio’s pictures may be said to be an amplification of the Holy Conversations of Palma Vecchio. They represent groups of fash- ionably attired Venetian men and women, seated under the trees in palace parks or gardens, on ter- races or balconies, engaged in the idle pursuits of the day. To these scenes of contemporary life he usually tacks on some Biblical title, again follow- ing the custom of the day. The incongruity of title, subject, and treatment bothered him no more than his public. Ease of composition, graceful IRoom £♦ — £ala 5et Bontfast 2 73 balance of masses, well-understood construction of the human body and of tonal relations, natural, could-be-no-other-way manner of grouping, pleas- ing, at times even dignified and elevated types, a solidity and firmness of handling, — these are the attributes almost as universal in the best works of Bonifazio, or of the Bonifazi, as is the wonder- ful colour which plays over all. It is necessary to say “ of the Bonifazi,” for it is not yet certain whether there may not have been at least three of this family. For years Bonifazio was considered to represent but one painter, and to him, consequently, the many canvases signed by that name were attributed. Then more modern criticism appeared to prove that there were, as has been said, at least three of this same name. Mo- relli suggests that there may even have been four, and insists that they differ considerably in ability. The elder two are believed to have been born in Verona, and hence the appellation Bonifazio Vero- nese. Of these two, Morelli says that one, presum- ably the elder, was “ an artist of great talent, the other a mere imitator.” The third Bonifazio, it is supposed, may have been a son of one of these, and possibly he was born in Venice, thus acquir- ing the distinguishing mark of Bonifazio 1 Vene- ziano. This last painter, say the critics, was working as late as 1579, while works of the earlier 274 TTbe Brt of tbe IDentce BcabemE bear dates as far back as 1530. This youngest ranks far below both the older ones in talent. The confusion resulting from lack of definite knowl- edge about the three has mixed their works inex- tricably. To the layman it might seem an easy matter to assign the best works to Bonifazio I., the next in merit to Bonifazio II., and those of least value to the youngest, Bonifazio III., or Boni- fazio Veneziano, as he is called. This, however, seems beyond the powers of the critics. Scarcely two of them agree as to the authorship of most of the pictures. The latest criticism has chosen a simpler way out of the difficulty. In the last official catalogue the entire point of view is changed. According to Professor Pietro Paoletti di Oswaldo, there was after all only one Bonifazio, and to him are given all the pictures under that name in the Academy. This is apparently following Dr. Gustave Ludwig’s classification, for that German critic has recently brought forward evidence which to him seems con- clusive proof of this assertion. According to Mol- menti, who quotes Doctor Ludwig’s opinion, there was a very mediocre painter, Bonifazio Pasini of Verona, who never left his native town. That another, the Bonifazio Pitati, also of Verona, but unrelated to the first, came to Venice, and among other works decorated the palace of the Camer- IRoom £• — Saia Del Bontfasi 2 75 lenghi, and that finally Antonio Palma, who was heir and nephew to Bonifazio Pitati, and father of Jacopo Palma Giovane, was the very mediocre painter who has been confounded with the third Bonifazio. When noted critics so entirely disagree, there seems no safe path for the uninitiated to follow. It is certainly easier to bunch all the disputed works together and label them under the one name. But as there is still some doubt whether a later exploration of archives may not upset Doctor Ludwig’s conclusions, it seems desirable not wholly to ignore the position taken by Moschini, Ber- nasconi, Morelli, and others, that there may have been three Bonifazi, the first two brothers, or at least living at the same time, the last much younger. Whichever view is taken, the Parable of the Rich Man is universally considered the masterpiece of tins Veronese Venetian. It represents the log- gia and courtyard of a palace, where are gathered about a table the rich man and two women, a group of musicians, and a negro dwarf. On the right of the marble pillars which centralize this group is the kneeling beggar called Lazarus. At the left are two servants, and beyond, in the loggia and court, other servants and retainers of the house. In the distance is a view of trees, hills, an arbour, 276 Uhc Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabemp and a burning house, this last supposed to hint of the final destruction of the rich man and his pos- sessions. It is often said that if the composition had been cut at the sides marked by the two forward pillars it would gain in coherency, and would hang to- gether much more firmly. This may reasonably be doubted. The unevenness of the spaces outside of these columns brings the two young women, she who is singing to her guitar and she who is listening so sadly, into the centre of the picture; which, it may be conceded, is, from a purely tech- nical point of view, exactly what should be done. For it is not so much the overfed, dissipated host, nor yet the insipid woman beside him, about whom centres the real interest of the picture. They, in a way, are quite as unimportant as the beggar outside, whom Bonifazio, for strictly commercial reasons, named Lazarus. The host sits at the table between the two women, who have usually been called courtesans. He is looking at the older, sitting at the left, her head in profile, showing the lines of her full, rich throat and shoulders. One hand is in her lap, one at her bosom. Her colouring is positively luscious in its rich, melting tones of creamy white and rose, heightened and made more enticing by her gor- geous velvet robe and puffed satin sleeves, with the PARABLE OF THE RICH MAN IRoom — Sala bet Bontfaat 277 bit of lace showing at her breast. Her fascination lies wholly in her colouring, however, for her in- sufficient nose, rather phlegmatic if sensual mouth and chin prevent even the languishing look she is bestowing upon Monsieur Dives from being over- captivating. Dfives apparently feels this equally, for while he is returning her glance, he has ten- derly placed his hand over the younger woman’s lying on the table beside him. She is of very dif- ferent calibre from her companion. Sitting in full face, she has turned and dropped her head on to her left hand, the elbow of which rests on her left knee. Her eyes have slightly fallen, and she is looking at the singing woman, but without seeing her. A melancholy that is marvellously appealing has settled over her beautiful features, and if she is the courtesan that she is called, Morelli is prob- ably right when he says she is “ thinking remorse- fully of the days of her innocence.” From mere outward appearance, however, there is nothing to indicate that these days of innocence are passed. The delicate, clear-cut lines of chin, mouth, and brow show no suggestion of sensuality. Mourn- ful, or indulging in some mournful thought, she certainly is. But, if one were guessing unguided by guide or critic, she might be lamenting a strictly legal union with the man beside her, or merely regretting the fate that compels the other lovely 278 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabem^ young girl to sing for her living. What she is, however, or even what Bonifazio' intended her to represent is, after all, of more literary than pic- torial interest. Without a word of explanation she exists as one of the loveliest creations of Boni- fazio’s brush, — and it is a brush famous for its beautiful women. Scarcely less attractive, though of not quite so high a type, is the singing girl. Like the other two women, her blond hair is parted simply over her forehead, brought down behind her ears, and then bound over her head in braids, and like them, too, she wears the square, low-cut bodice, showing the exquisite curves of her neck and throat. She is in front of the table, sitting evidently on a low stool, reading her music from the book held up before her by the negro boy. Beside her kneels the ’cellist, and back of them is a third member of their party, a dark-haired and bearded man. These three are rendered with a faithfulness that makes each one seem like an exact portrait, one of the chief characteristics, indeed, of all of Bonifazio’s figures. Beyond, the man with the falcon, the group of attendants, the court, and even the dog drinking at the fountain, are not less real, though purposely subordinated to> those in the foreground. In this scene, as in most of Bonifazio’s, the resonant, deep red tone, of which he was so 1 fond, IRoom £♦ — Sala fcei Bonitasi 279 is one of the key-notes of the harmony of colour. There is a richness, a mellowness, as well as a marvellous transparent quality to this colour as he uses it that seems to dominate the whole scene. It is as if some of its warmth could be felt even in the palest flesh-tones, as if it shed its lustre into the very air and was partly responsible for the penetrating luminosity of the atmosphere. It is said, by the way, that Dives is supposed to represent Henry VIII. of England, and the lady at his side, Anne Boleyn. The Judgment of Solomon has been considered the joint work of the two elder Bonifazi. It is a tall, upright panel, showing on the right of the composition, upon a marble terrace of a palace, Solomon enthroned, gorgeously attired in a blue robe, with golden brocaded mantle. In his left hand he holds his sceptre, while his right is ex- tended to the mothers, who kneel before him. At the foot of the throne is the child, its arms seized by an executioner who, with his sword drawn, is about to carry out the sentence of death. Soldiers and attendants stand about in rich Oriental cos- tume, with others in the background. The dis- tance is a sombre, mountainous landscape. The brilliant clothes of the two mothers, the richness of the Orientals, and the royal garb of Solomon on his marble throne give this a jewel- 28o tlbe Hrt of tbe IDentce Hcabem^ like splendour of colour. Solomon himself is dis- played as a youthful, almost girlish figure, with a face in which sweetness of expression instead of force of character is perceived. The two mothers are drawn with much spirit and sympathy, the agony and terror of the faces vividly and not too melodramatically indicated. There are several Adorations of the Magi in this room, which have usually been given to Boni- fazio II. According to the new catalogue one of them alone is now credited to Bonifazio>, the others being considered only partly his. In all there is much beautiful colour, and in all the mother is a very sweet and tender-faced young woman, lack- ing somewhat perhaps in marked nobility of ex- pression. The Christ-child is painted with a charm and delicacy of colour that at times recall the brush of Titian. All the canvases have been so tremendously repainted that it is difficult to tell which part is original and which modern restora- tion. The Woman Taken in Adultery Morelli claims to be the work of the two elder Bonifazi. Others ascribe it to Bonifazio II. The types of head are similar to those in the Judgment of Solomon, and there is, as Morelli observes, much the same strength and brilliancy of colouring. It shows Christ seated at the left in a vestibule, beyond ADORATION OF THE MAGI By Bonifazio IRooin f. — Sala Dei Bonifasi 281 which may be seen a view of San Marco’s Piaz- zetta, giving a corner of the Sansovino Library and the Loggetta of the Campanile. About him are the Pharisees, and before him stands the ac- cused, dressed in blue, with a white veil, her hands bound by a cord, the ends held by a soldier kneel- ing on his shield. Soldiers , ' women, and children are about. Critics differ as to the value of this picture, some praising it for its beautiful colour, some, like Sir Charles Eastlake, calling it “ a crowded compo- sition, . . . possessing little or no technical excel- lence.” The Massacre of the Innocents, considered apart from its subject, can call for only the greatest praise. It is magnificent in its tonal qualities. The harmony and richness of its colours, the exquisite blending and contrasting of tints, make it a veri- table colour symphony. If the subject is legiti- mate in art at all, then, also, it must be acknowl- edged that Bonifazio has treated it as such a sub- ject should be treated. He has been condemned for the heartlessness displayed by the officer under whose direction the slaughter is taking place. But certainly to have dowered him with any feeling would bring a false note into the composition. He could not have been sitting there overseeing the 282 ube Brt of tbe Dentce Bcabemp bloody job had he been capable of appreciating the terrible nature of his task. The slaughter is depicted taking place in the middle distance, and it is as full of horror as Boni- fazio properly could make it. The foreground is mostly taken by the old man, who is evidently in charge of the officers and soldiers deployed for the work. Jesus and Philip and Other Apostles has been at- tributed to both Lorenzo Lotto and Palma Vecchio, and Mr. Berenson does not include it among the works of Bonifazio. The Academy catalogue calls it a joint production of Bonifazio and Palma Vec- chio. The dark background and the heavy depth of the shadows are unlike Bonifazio, but the types are in general agreed to be representative of him rather than of Palma. It is a panel about seven feet long by five wide, with life-size figures. At the left stands Jesus, in full face, dressed in a pale rose-coloured robe and deep blue mantle. One hand rests lightly on his breast, with the other he is pointing heavenward, as if calling for celestial witness to his words. At the right, in profile, facing him, is Philip, in green tunic and pale yellow pallium, one hand held out as though expostulating. Behind these two, whose full robes and mantles practically fill the entire lower part of the composition, can be seen the By Bonifazio I IRoom f. — Sala bet Bcntfasl 283 heads and shoulders of various other disciples. Among them are the youthful, girlish John, the aging, rugged Peter, the younger James. The modelling of the figures is both firm and solid, and the construction and drawing show a freedom and surety not always felt in Venetian art. The colouring, except for some rather leaden shadows, is rich and effective, and all the faces are differ- entiated with the skill usual with the Bonifazi. Jesus has a serious, earnest expression not without real spirituality in his beautiful dark eyes. Even more successful is Philip, his rugged frame bent forward in a certain rude intensity that is softened by the fine, delicately lined, anxious face. Christ Enthroned, Morelli claims to have prob- ably been executed by Bonifazio II., which indi- cates that he did not find it quite up to the best work of the Bonifazi, but that he thought it too good to give to the youngest of the trio. Jesus, seated on a throne placed on a terrace, is shown in the act of blessing. One foot is on a globe representing the terrestrial sphere, and on his knee is an open book. A delightful baby angel sits on the platform at his feet strumming his guitar, St. Mark kneels on the tiled floor near by, and St. Dominick is standing just behind him, on the right of the throne. King David, St. Louis of France, and St. Justina are at the left. In the 284 Ube Brt of tbe IDentce Bcabem$ distance behind a parapet, seen through three semi- circular arches, is a view of distant country and mountains. At the right and left, about stepping on to the terrace, are groups of the faithful, mostly in priestly robes. The Madonna in Glory with Five Saints, ac- cording again to Morelli, is by Bonifazio III., and shows, he says, the strong influence Titian had over the younger Bonifazio in his later years. The colouring and modelling of the figures, as well as the character of the types, all recall Titian. Above the more important of the Bonifazio pic- tures are many panels, each holding two or three saints. According to Lafenestre, Morelli, and other modern critics, these are all by Bonifazio III., painted in his youth, and showing the influence of the older members of the family before he be- gan to imitate Titian so strenuously. They are pictures painted generally for some Venetian in official life, and displaying usually his coat of arms and initials on a shield at the base of the composition. All of them are solidly painted, full of rarely beautiful colour, often of excellent char- acterization, and occasionally evincing an unex- pected height of expression. Far more noted even than the Feast at the Rich Man’s House is the great canvas known as the Fisherman Returning the Ring of St. Mark to TRooin f. — Sala £>et JSonifa3t 285 the Doge, by Paris Bordone, which hangs in this same room. Paris Bordone, who, because of the fame of this picture, is unfairly titled the painter of one picture, was born at Treviso in 1495, an d died i n I 57 °- His education was strictly Venetian, but he was no mere imitator of that school. He shows the in- fluence of both Giorgione and Titian, and it is believed that he entered the latter’s studio when he was about fourteen. Many of his works have dis- appeared or been wrongly ascribed to Titian and others, but there are still a number in different European cities which plainly indicate his ability, though, of course, there is none of them which begins to approach this famous one of the Acad- emy. Morelli calls him a “ noble, attractive and refined artist, and a splendid colourist, though of unequal merit and at times superficial.” “ He is remarkable,” notes another, “ for a delicate rosy colour in his flesh, and for the purple, crimson and shot-tints of his draperies, which are usually in small and crumpled folds.” Of the picture here, Burckhardt says, “ It is the most beautifully painted ceremonial picture that exists anywhere,” and Molmenti exclaims that the scene is as if bathed in an atmosphere “ couteur de rose .” It is the only picture in the Academy which is at all worthy of him, for the Paradise, a disagreeably col- 286 Ube Brt ot tbe Dentce Bcabems oured, conventionally designed panel with the Apostles, Saints, and Martyrs below and the Holy Tribunal above is so poor that it seems incredible that it can be by the same man. The Fisherman Returning the Ring to the Doge illustrates the story of a fisherman who, one ter- rible night of storm in February, 1340, lay in his gondola fast to the landing near San Marco. Here he was accosted by a venerable man from the church, and offered a large sum to be taken over to San Giorgio Maggiore. Once there, a young man joined them, and then they desired the fisherman to row across to San Niccolo di Lido. In spite of the fearful waves that, the nearer they got to the open sea, grew worse and worse, the fisherman succeeded in reaching the Lido church. Hardly had they arrived than a third man, old and bent, met the other two, and also entered the boat. In- stead of turning homewards, they commanded the boatman to take them out between the forts at the mouth of the harbour. With the waves dash- ing mountain high they at length reached the Adriatic, where they saw approaching a boat manned with devils on their way to destroy Ven- ice. The three passengers made the sign of the cross, whereupon the storm cleared and the devils vanished. Then they went back, and each man landed where he had embarked. As the last one Hoorn £.— Sala &ef 3Bonifa3t 287 got out at San Marco, he told the boatman that he was the Evangelist Mark, and patron saint of Venice, that the other two were St. George and St. Nicholas. Giving the fisherman a ring from his finger, he told him to show that to the doge and he would receive the reward which they had promised him. So, next morning the old fellow took the ring to the doge and told his story. As the very ring he gave them was kept locked up in the sacristy of San Marco, and as no bolts or bars had been tampered with, they knew that no one less mighty than the saint himself could have taken it. Whereby they perceived that a great miracle had been enacted. The fisherman was given a pension for life, and the populace took part in a solemn mass to express their gratitude for the city’s deliverance. Bordone chose for the subject of his picture the moment of the fisherman’s appearance before the doge. On the right, enthroned under a marble- pillared loggia of most exquisite Renaissance de- sign, sits the doge surrounded by the members of the council. Rarest Eastern rugs are spread over the steps at their feet; the carving of the cornices and capitals and the recesses behind their heads and on the sides of the raised platform is fairly dreamlike in its delicate intricacy. Led by a cham- berlain the fisherman is mounting the tiled steps 288 ube Brt of tbe tDentce Bcabem^ before the doge, the ring held out in his trembling hand. Another chamberlain stands below recom- mending him to the attention of the council, and back of him is a crowd of Venetian nobles. In front, one foot holding the gondola drawn up to the steps, half-sits and half-lies the fisherman’s boy, studying with wide-eyed curiosity the splendour spread out before him. Beyond, through the arches of the loggia, marble buildings of fairylike light- ness and grace of structure lead out into the streets of an idealized but characteristic Venice. The mere magnificence of this scene is almost indescribable. Nothing less glowing than the painting itself can give any adequate idea of its mere colour scheme. It conveys little impression to dwell upon the mellow, soft-toned marbles, carvings, and orna- mentation, alone quite enough to prove the fancy and originality of any architect, the velvety sheen of those rugs, fit for an Oriental despot, and the gorgeous brocades of the princes and senators. As no adjectives can convey the sense of splendour of these glowing masses of colour, so nothing less than the picture itself can give an idea of the brilliance of the Venetian sky behind and over the dazzling marble palaces, nor of the wonderful atmosphere that envelops the whole scene, softening edges, making distant darkness translucent, throwing a glamour as real as it is poetic. Equally masterly FISHERMAN RETURNING THE RING TO THE DOGE By Paris Bordone IRoorn — Sala bet Bontfa3i 289 is the chiaroscuro. The focusing of the light upon the doge and the kneeling fisherman against their dark backgrounds is hardly less skilful than the way in which the deepest shadows mass over the pillars and under the vaulting, leading out of the piazza, beyond which the sun plays full over the courts and walls. Adding to, completing the effect of all this wonderful colour, atmosphere, and chia- roscuro are the admirable balance and massing, the feeling of movement and life in the composition, and the knowledge and power displayed in each of the many figures introduced into the scene. If in a certain sense all this can be called technical achievement, something else than merely trained ability is responsible for the individualistic treat- ment of those dignitaries, every one as intimate an expression of character as if he made one of a portrait group. Something besides the education of the schools made it possible for Bordone to show the hesitancy, the faltering, joined to the sturdy purpose in that half-clad fisherman, so sure of his rights, and yet so abashed by all the regal pomp before him that he needs the encouraging assistance of the kindly chamberlains. And what brush that was not held by a poet’s hand could ever have por- trayed that beautiful boy of the people on the steps below? No, — it is truly called the most beautiful ceremonial picture in existence, but it is 290 Zhc Brt ot tbe IDentce Hcafcems much more than that phrase usually is understood to mean. It is, in spite of the miraculous story it is supposed to illustrate, just a living page from the life of the Venice of Bordone’s day, and as such shows the pathos and the glory, the magnificence and the poverty, the reality and the seeming, as only a seer, a painter with a poet’s eye, could ex- press it. Two panels in Room io, by Moretto da Brescia, do not give much idea of that painter’s real ability. One of St. Peter shows the saint about two-thirds the size of life, standing in full face, his head turned three-quarters to the right. His robe is blue, mantle dark crimson lined with a greenish colour. In his left hand he holds a book, in his right the keys of his office. Back of him is a wooded landscape. His head has much dignity and nobleness, and the drapery, though heavy, is well- handled in its full, deep folds. St. John the Baptist is about the same size, his figure turned three-quarters to the left, his face in full view. His robe is dark, with a crimson mantle thrown over his right shoulder. In his right hand he carries a cross and a scroll, with the left he points upward. This is hardly as sat- isfactory as the other. The colour is cold, and though the saint’s figure is carefully studied, the IRoom f. — Sala &et asonifajt 291 flesh-tones are not true in key, and the face is not impressive. Alessandro Bonvincino is far better known under the name of Moretto da Brescia. He was born probably near 1498 at Rovato, not far from Bres- cia, and is said by some authorities to have died in 1555. He is usually supposed to have based his style largely upon the works of Palma and Titian, but Morelli says that he never lost the Bres- cian character. His colour is generally silvery, and though the drawing and dignity of his fig’ures recall Titian, his palette is very unlike that of the man of Cadore. His later works are greatly supe- rior to his earlier. Kugler says of him that “ his compositions are occasionally of the highest order,” and that in the Feast of the Pharisee in S. Maria della Pieta in Venice “ he here unites the harmony, force and brilliance of Venice and Brescia, and anticipates the pomp of dress and gorgeousness of Paul Veronese.” Other splendid works by him are in the National Gallery and in the Belvedere, but the best examples of his art are still to be found in and near Brescia. He was especially noted as a portrait-painter, and is represented in most of the public galleries. In his early career he worked with Romanino on the frescoes in S. Giovanni Evan- gelista, and again later in Verona. Vasari gives him great praise, especially for his skill in paint- 292 Ube Hrt of tbe tDenice Hcabemp in g silks, satins, brocades, and wools. At times he has a Raphaelesque feeling for grace of line and composition, noted by critics, especially in the Slaughter of the Innocents in S. Giovanni. His art was at its highest expression in 1530, shown most notably, perhaps, in his Majesty of St. Mar- garet in San Francesco of Brescia. The Saviour between St. Peter and St. John, by Marconi, has a solemnity of expression that, as M. Charles Blanc says, is a trifle monotonous. The chief beauty of the picture lies, as usual with Marconi, in its fine colour effect, an effect achieved not only by the rich-toned robes, but by the land- scape background where trees mass against the evening sky across which soft clouds are floating. Jesus stands in the centre of the picture, his right hand lifted in benediction. On the right is John the Baptist, bearing a cross over his shoulder, with a lamb at his feet. Peter is at the left, hold- ing the keys and a book. The figures are almost life-size. Peter’s face is dignified, and is the best piece of character work in the composition. Three pictures here by Schiavone, Jesus En- chained, Jesus before Pilate, and the Circumcision, are conventionally treated compositions, of little value except as fair examples of Schiavone’s abil- ities as a colourist. His real name was Andrea Meldola, Schiavone being given him in honour of IRcom £* — Sala Del Bontfajt 293 his birthplace, Sebenico, where he was born of very humble parents in 1552. Living as he did when Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese were at their height, he had great difficulty in getting enough to do, and all his life he was wretchedly poor, dy- ing in 1582 without leaving enough to bury him. That he was appreciated by his artist contem- poraries is proved by the remark ascribed to Tin- toretto that every painter ought to keep in his studio a picture by Schiavone to study its beautiful colour. As a draughtsman Schiavone was sadly deficient. His construction of figures and his pro- portions are almost always incorrect. In his en- gravings these faults are extremely noticeable. In his paintings he has such depth and richness of colour, such life and transparence in the tones, his lights are so glowing, his shadows so luminous, and his treatment of chiaroscuro so full of verve and the charm of unexpectedness, that his faults as draughtsman are forgotteq. A very charming little canvas called Venus, in this room, really a copy of Titian’s Danae, is by Giovanni Contarini. It has exquisite colour gra- dations, and is so free and supple in handling that one hardly realizes that it is only a copy. Contarini was born in 1549 in Venice, and, among the mediocrities of the last part of the sixteenth and first part of the seventeenth century, 294 Ubc Brt of tbe Venice Bcabemp stands out as a man of real if uneven talent. His colour was vigorous, his brush facile, and he had a happy faculty of imitating the style and manner of greater men. As a draughtsman he was dis- tinctly poor. Domenico Tintoretto, the son of the great Tin- toretto, has eight or nine pictures in the Academy, five of them portraits. Four of his canvases are in Room 9, one, the Portrait of Pietro Marcello, in Room 10, Christ Scourged in Room 11, and the Madonna and Child between Two Camerlenghi in the first corridor. Extended comment of them is here hardly possible. The portraits are by far the best of his work. Domenico was the most famous pupil of his father, and at first he followed closely in his style, producing works of some ex- cellence, but showing little originality, and with neither colour nor drawing nearly equal to his father’s. Later on in life he grew more exag- gerated, trying to achieve effects by superficial, forced means; and his art finally degenerated into the overabundant forms, the ill-regulated, crowded composition, the careless, intense colour character- istic of the last days of the Renaissance. Titian’s Pieta is the last work of the hand that had but a year to complete its century. Unfor- tunately, there is comparatively little left in the pic- ture that is wholly the work of the indefatigable IRoom £♦ — Saia bei Bontfast 2 9S centenarian. After his death the canvas was found in his studio, and Palma the younger was chosen to complete it. It is not to Palma’s reverent brush that its present despoilment is due. Since his day more than one cleaner and restorer have had their say, till now it is impossible to tell with certainty which part is Titian’s, which Palma’s, and which the blatant renovator’s. It is generally conceded that the central group of Mother and Son is the least injured of all, and more nearly expresses both Titian’s conception and his execution. Before a stone, semidomed recess sits Mary, hold- ing across her knees the dead Christ, unclothed except for a drapery about the loins. Joseph of Arimathea kneels in profile at the right, lifting with loving touch the limp, dropped arm of the Master. At the left Mary Magdalen, in a frenzy of grief, hair unbound and flying, arms and draperies out- spread, seems to be rushing away from the quiet group about Death. A tiny angel is leaning over the vase of ointment at her feet, and in the air over the head of Jesus another is bearing a lighted torch. On lion-faced pedestals at the sides of the stone recess stand statues of Moses and the Grecian Sibyl, and on the floor leaning against Titian’s coat of arms is a little painting representing Titian and his son kneeling before a Madonna of Pity. The darkening and thickening of the colours 296 Zhc Brt of tbe IDenice Hcafcemp have made the Pieta almost monochromatic in its warm brown tones, and in the mere handling of it there is little to recall the man of Cadore. The tumultuously agitated Magdalen, the introduction and treatment of the two marble statues, are also not at all Titianesque. But in the Mother and Son can be felt the mighty hand of the great Venetian. There is a monumental grandeur of grief and re- strained passion that, as one critic has not failed to remark, recalls the Pieta of Michelangelo. It was executed when the unfaltering hand of its creator was nearing its own final rest, when the indomitable spirit must have felt its own approach- ing dissolution. In a sense it was his own requiem. Titian intended the picture for the Chapel of the Crucifixion in the Church of the Frari where was to be his tomb. It came to the Academy from the suppressed Church of S. Angelo. REPOSE IN EGYPT By Jacopo Bassano CHAPTER XIV. ROOM XI. SALA DEI BASSANO. ROOM XII, — SALA DEI SECOLX XVII. AND XVIII. Most of the pictures in Sala dei Bassano, as the title of the room indicates, are by the three Bassani. As their characteristics and abilities have already been considered, it is not necessary to treat of these pictures in detail. They really speak for them- selves. Whether of such Scriptural subjects as the Incredulity of Thomas, the Entrance of the Ani- mals into the Ark, the Adoration of the Shepherds, or Landscapes with a Flight into Egypt in the dis- tance, or homely pastoral scenes, or mere portraits, in all are shown the clear, gemlike colour, the real- ity of faithfully depicted nature, the actual joy of the painters who use their brush as their one de- light in life, their dearest plaything as well as their most necessary tool. In Room 12 most of the works are of very minor interest and of even less real artistic value. They are principally by men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and are either, as a rule, weak 297 29 8 Ube Hrt of tbe Wentce Hcabem^ imitations of the masters of the sixteenth century or are puerile attempts to exploit some individual eccentricity of style or subject. One of these men, Gregorio Lazzarini, had slightly more talent than the majority of the men of his time. Born in Venice in 1654, he has been called the Raphael of the Venetian school, an epi- thet more remarkable for its hyperbole than for its discrimination. He partakes in the coldness and lack of resonance in his colour rather of the Roman school than of the Venetian. His design and com- position, contrary to usual Venetian rule, are su- perior to his colour. He is best remembered, per- haps, as a teacher of Tiepolo. His most satisfac- tory work here is probably the scene representing the Israelites being fed with manna. Three pictures here by Sebastiano Ricci, the Rape of Europa, Diana at Her Bath, and Healing of the Man with Palsy, are fairly representative of the man who was a favourite at the courts of Austria, France, and England, and whose best works are still at Hampton Court, England. He was born at Belluno in 1660, and he modelled his style on many of the famous Venetian painters, imitating them, indeed, with such fidelity that many of his pictures passed for those of far more celebrated men. It is said that while he was in France he did not dis- dain selling some of his own panels as being the IRoom £1L — Sala bet Bassano 299 work of Veronese. On one occasion it is reported that he succeeded in deceiving La Fosse, the French painter, who revenged himself by advising him to paint “ no more Riccis ! ” He had a pleasing col- our, a facile brush, and, though his design was often lacking in symmetry and proportion, the gracefulness of the lines and, the softness of colour made the crude construction less felt. Most of his colour has suffered badly from a blackening brought on by time. But where some bit has escaped this, it is seen to be fresh, clear, and transparent, with a silvery softness that counterbalances its coldness. One picture here amid the crowd of mediocrities stands out unmistakably as the work of a man of undoubted genius. The Holy Family Appear- ing to St. Gaetano is not one of the greatest works of Tiepolo; indeed, it has been ascribed to his son, Domenico, because it does not seem worthy of the father. But it is so far ahead of most of the canvases here that it appears far more remarkable than it really is. It is likely that Domenico at least helped in finishing this canvas, for fie, as well as other as- sistants, was constantly at work with Tiepolo in his studio. It has much beauty of colour and light, joined to extremely realistic portraiture. The Mother and Joseph are extraordinarily actual and at the same time intensely modern in both type and 3°° Ube Hrt of tbe IDentce BcaDem# treatment. There is nothing here except in the subject that reminds one of the spirit of the van- ished Renaissance. Leaning on the balustrade at the corner of a balcony is the saint in his black robe, hands on his breast, head lifted in profile, gazing at the vision which rests on the cloud that comes down and partly envelops him. St. Joseph is nearest Gaetano. He sits on the cloud as though it were a grassy bank, his bare arms and feet protruding from his brown robe, his worn, gray-bearded face bent over the Child whom he holds upright on his knees. At the right, slightly higher, is the Madonna, looking down at Gaetano with a cheerful tenderness of aspect, drawing his attention to the Child with a gesture of both hands. Behind her head two an- gels hold a white drapery, and over St. Joseph a gray-robed angel clasps a cloud-ringed cornice of the palace walls and holds in one hand a flower- ing staff. By the babe are two cherubic heads. This lovely baby form with its laughing eyes and face ; the grandeur of the angel overhead, the troubled, awkward care of Joseph, are all rendered with that pithiness of which Tiepolo was past mas- ter. Not less capital is the thin, dreaming face of the devout monk below. As if to prove to his every-day senses the reality of the vision, a spray of lilies lies on the stone step at his feet. IRoom £ 1 L — Sala Dei Bassano 301 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born in Venice in 1696 and died in Madrid in 1770. As Titian in- fluenced Velasquez, so Tiepolo is said to have influenced Goya, the last Spanish painter of im- portance. To Goya in his turn the modern French school owes much, so> that it can be said without exaggeration that Tiepolo hqs greatly affected all painting of to-day. He for his part has been called the lineal descendant of the great Veronese, but with many and varying qualifications. His mar- vellous fecundity of ideas, his rapidity and ease of execution, his astonishing technical acquirements, — in an age when technique meant merely clever brush-work or a boudoir prettiness of handling, — his daring breadth of vision, his supreme uncon- sciousness of all recognized canons of art, his non- chalant egotism that allowed him every latitude of conception or execution, his wonderful power of composition that, upsetting often enough every hard and fast rule, was its own excuse for its iconoclasm, his theatricalness, his blatant posturing, and under and through all the vigour, the mas- culinity, and the originality as well as the incon- sequence, the ugliness, and the dashing impudence, — these are the attributes of this eighteenth-cen- tury painter, which have been extolled or con- demned according to the nature or point of view of the critic. But whether hailed as the last of the 302 Ube Brt ot tbe Venice Bcabemp great painters of the Renaissance, or heralded as the first of the great moderns, or scourged as one of the most flagrant of the long line of offenders against the canons of pure and lofty art, Tiepolo at least deserves recognition and homage for his own inherent power at a time when art had sunk to the level of a Lazzarini. There was nothing in contemporary Italian art to teach or uplift such a nature as his. The public was quite satisfied, it seemed, to' admire the con- fectionery order of painting that was all the ar- tistic descendants of the great powers of the Renaissance had to give. Only by his own innate appreciation could he have realized that something other than this was real art, — his own innate understanding aided by the daily visions of the glowing canvases of Titian, Tintoretto, and Vero- nese, visions, however, that his brother painters appeared never to see. Different in spirit, in mani- festation, as he is from these giants of the six- teenth century, he did have something of their power, their genius. And as such he must live, even as they live, though his plane lies far below their heights. CHAPTER XV. ROOM XIII. SALA DEI PAESISTA. ROOM XIV. — SALA DEL TIEPOLO Room 13 holds eight pastel portraits by Rosalba Camera, besides several others that may or may not be her own work. The greatest number of the pastels of this famous woman are in the Dresden Gallery, but some of these in Venice rank higher, artistically, than many in the German gallery. Among the best are the portraits of herself, of Cardinal de Polignac, Abbot le Blond, and of two noblemen. Her own represents her as a woman nearing later middle age, with curling gray hair, dark, ex- quisitely curved eyebrows, and dark eyes, with a chin that is surely if not strongly double. Her waist is red, fur-edged, cut decollete, over a white lace vest, with a blue and white chiffon scarf fall- ing over her shoulders. The pure, peach-toned complexion, the soft contours of the neck and bust, the smooth, untroubled brow, the half-smiling ex- pression, — these, the attributes of almost all the 303 3°4 TLbc Hrt of tbe IDenice Bcafcems feminine portraits by Rosalba, are here in all their perfection of rendering. It is an amiable if slightly self-satisfied lady that the artist makes of herself, with unmistakable marks of the woman of breed- ing, of the world of society. Technically, it is better drawn than many of her most celebrated works. The Portrait of Cardinal Polignac shows the prelate turned three-quarters to the left, wearing the red cap of his office. He wears, also, the blue ribbon and the cross of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The background is green. It is a spirited yet delicate portrait with the sympathetic, sensitive touches so characteristic of Rosalba. The painter of this and these other soft-toned, silvery pastels, Rosa Alba Carriera, was born in Venice in 1676, and before she was twenty-four she was well-known and admired for her minia- tures and portrait-pastels. She was eminently suc- cessful all through her long, artistic career, her portraits being always in great demand in all the courts of Europe. She visited France when about forty-five and was made much of by court, painters, musicians, and litterateurs. Her salon was crowded with the distinguished people of the day, she was made an Academician, and all Paris clamoured for work from her hand. The fame she achieved in her own day has to PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL POLIGNAC By Rosalba Camera IRoom flfiriL — Sala fcei paeststa 305 a certain extent remained hers through all the changing fashions and styles of the years since. It is perfectly apparent that she was not a good draughtsman ; that she had never sufficiently studied the human figure is seen in her frequently ill- joined arms and shoulders, heads and necks. It is even probable that she ,can be suspected of following, more or less unconsciously, a receipt in mixing her flesh-tones. Her fair women have a too 1 uniform loveliness of pearly skin, rosy cheeks, and delicate, greenish shadows that sink so softly into the white powdered skin. Yet, there is so much charm to these courtly dames or sentimental maid- ens, such a spiritual touch in the mere handling of the crayon, that posterity has been indulgent to Rosalba’s weaknesses and has accorded her more praise than has been bestowed upon many a stronger painter. Of as indisputable talent as Tiepolo himself was Pietro Longhi, who has a number of works in this room. Though he never, in his later and better years, even attempted the “ grand style,” he as well as Gianbattista can be called a not unworthy descendant of the Venetian painters of the six- teenth century. This, too, notwithstanding that from one point of view his work can be called slight, almost puerile. It deals neither with big themes nor does it show any particular largeness 3°6 TLhc Hrt of tbe Denice Hcabem^ of treatment. Longhi aspired to be neither a painter of religious scenes nor was he a decorator of walls or ceilings. His art dealt principally with just such subjects as have always delighted the Dutchman’s heart. In his own way, from the point of view of his own nationality, he was as fertile, as delightful, and as true a painter of genre as was De Hooch or Terborch. And certainly not even these famous Netherlanders ever better adapted their style to their subjects. He does not concern himself with beauty, per se. What he does attempt is to portray truthfully the daily, intimate life of the middle and upper class Venetians of his day, a day, by the way, that lasted for nearly a century, for Longhi was born in 1702 and lived till 1785. He is as true an historian in his own field as was Veronese in his. Within the limits of his little canvases Venice of the eighteenth century is seen walking, smiling, dancing, gossiping, coquetting. And if he seldom touches the tragedy that under- lay this rather flippant Venice, he is only express- ing Venice as she was. If her dominion was over, if she was a slave where once she was the queen of the world, at least she outwardly shed no tears regretting her past glories. The sun was as bright, the lagoon as fair, the city as blooming as ever. Wherefore, — smile and take the gifts the gods have given, and live the life that is next you with- IRoom flMIf. — Sala bet paeststa 3°7 out regrets. That is the key-note to these gay little scenes from Longhi’s brush. If, as Alexandre suggests, he occasionally shows something of the satirical glee of a Hogarth, it is but for a moment, and he is back again, the Venetian philosopher, happy in his own individual life and quite willing to let Church and state wag as they will. In the Apothecary’s Shop the proprietor of the establishment is standing in the centre of the room, a big nightcap on his head, full dressing-gown coming almost to the ground, and heavy-rimmed glasses perched far down on his long Roman nose. He is engaged in the act of pulling out a tooth from the mouth of a young woman standing beside him. She is a buxom maiden, dressed in the low- cut, square bodice of the time. On one side farther back a man with a long, curly wig is sitting writing at a table next a girl, and farther back still are seen a priest and another wigged man. In the fore- ground a boy is filling some, bottles, many more of which, along with glasses, china mugs, and boxes, line the shelves about the room. The colour here is perhaps not quite equal to some of the others in the same room, but as a bit of pure genre it can hardly be excelled. The va- riety of type in the heads and the character dis- played in each face make it worthy to rank with far more noted canvases. 3°s Ube Hr t of tbe Dentce Bcabemp More brilliant in colour is the Concert, and not less remarkable for its character delineation. Be- hind a table covered with a brocaded cover stand the three musicians, each with his violin, and each playing away lustily. The one in the centre, who is apparently the leader, is much taller than the others, and in his full yellow gown and big cap on his extraordinarily pale face makes an imposing figure. He on the right is considerably older and, peering through glasses that are half off his nose, he is studying the music before him in an anxiety that fairly doubles him over. At the left a much younger, dark haired and eyed youth follows the score, and keeps close to the leader. Somewhat back of this group, at the left, a fat monk sits at a small table playing cards with a thin-faced old man, another, younger one, observing the play from behind through a monocle. None of these is paying the slightest attention to the music, and if Longhi was slyly smiling when he placed that gross-featured, swollen-eyed monk next the hatchet-faced old gentleman with his deprecatory manner, he must have been fairly laughing when he made the only auditor of the concert the tiny pet dog sitting on the chair in front of the table. Her intense absorption in the playing is wonderful to behold. It must, one is tempted to think, have been quite as satisfying to the trio as any that could THE CONCERT By Pietro Longhi IRoom flfflL — Sala hci paeststa 3° 9 have been manufactured by the card-players be- hind! The Dancing Master introduces a more aristo- cratic company. Here is the interior of a stately furnished room with a tremendous sofa at the back, deep hangings at the window, and an elaborately framed picture on the wall. / The central part of the room is quite filled by the voluminous skirts of the young girl who is being instructed in the mysteries of “ steps ” by the master in peruke and wide sweeping coat. He is standing facing her, the tips of the fingers of his right hand just touch- ing the tips of hers. He is a very debonair danc- ing-master in his fine silk hose and shiny buckled shoes, lace ruffles, and immaculate peruke. Not altogether satisfied does he appear with the pirouet- ting of his fair pupil either, for he is pointing down to her little slippered feet as if emphasizing his admonitions. She is dressed right royally in an extremely low bodice trimmed with fur, jewels about her neck and in her ears, and lace frills stick- ing out on each side of her head almost like a Dutch cap. At the left, in the foreground, sits the duenna in rich furs and silks, and in the back- ground the fiddler plays with as disinterested an air as if he were a machine guaranteed to go till it runs down! The colour and atmosphere of this 3 io Ufoe Brt ot tbe Dentce Bcabem^ little canvas are delightful, and the serious air per- vading the scene of frivolity is vastly amusing. There are several pictures by Zuccherelli in both Rooms 13 and 14, one of the better ones in the latter being the Repose in Egypt. In this the Ma- donna is shown in the middle of the scene, sitting on a hillock, turned in profile to the right, holding the Child Jesus. Somewhat behind, at the left, Joseph is seen picking fruit. At the right is a river, farther in the distance a house, and moun- tains break the horizon. Francesco Zuccarelli, as his name is also spelled, was born at Pitigliano, Tuscany, about 1792. He was a pupil of Gian Maria Morandi of Rome, and he worked at Venice, London, and Florence, in which place he died in 1788. He was both a land- scape and a figure painter. Lanzi says of him that he “ applied himself to painting landscape ; and pursued it in a manner that united strength and sweetness ; . . . his figures were also elegant, and these he was sometimes employed to introduce in the landscapes and architectural pieces of other artists.” He lived in England for a good many years where he was greatly favoured by George III., and he was one of the original members of the English Royal Academy. For the degenerate time in which he lived he was a not unsuccessful painter. Compared with even the second-rate men of the IRoom flflflL — Sala fret paeststa 31 1 golden days of the Renaissance, however, he was puerile, affected, and insufficiently trained. Decidedly more real talent had Giovanni Bat- tista Piazzetta, who has one very charming picture in Room 14. Battista was born in 1683 an d died in 1754. He studied the works of Guercino in Bologna, and this painter’s influence can easily be seen in his compositions, although M. Charles Blanc has called him “ a Venetian Caravaggio.” Molmenti says that he was superior to Lazzarini both by the vigour of his colour and the solidity of his forms. His flesh-tones have a luminous, tender quality that makes them very charming, and his chiaroscuro shows a comprehension of the dramatic possibilities of light and shade that superficially may indeed remind one of Caravag- gio. But he has a lightness of touch and fancy that, though partaking of the triviality of the eighteenth century, is remarkably effective in both his religious scenes and his pictures of genre. He is at his best in what may be called semiportraiture. The heads in his pictures show his faculty for in- dicating momentary emotion, though the emotion may not be profound or deep. One of his most attractive pictures anywhere, and by far the best in the Academy, is the one called the Fortune-teller, in Room 14. It repre- sents a young girl seated in nearly full face on a 312 Ube Brt of tbe \Dentce Hcabemp rock, holding a little dog under one arm, while another girl leans over her at the left, holding her hand. Back, at the right, a youth in profile and a third maiden are talking and laughing wholly regardless of the others in front. The light strikes full against the girl on the rock, emphasizing her smiling face, crowned by its straw hat, intensify- ing the bright tones of her white dress and pink underskirt, and sweeping, too, over the soft, round prettiness of the fortune-teller’s bare shoulder. Not less effective is the treatment of the two farther away from the centre of interest; espe- cially charming is the piquant face of the girl look- ing up at her admirer with a half-tender, half- laughing gaze. It is an expression that fairly characterizes the whole picture. What might be sentimentality, under the gay insouciance of Piaz- zetta’s treatment is transformed to a sort of half- tender amusement. Technically, the freedom and ease of the brush-work, the well-balanced compo- sition, and the excellent understanding shown in construction, modelling, and chiaroscuro, joined to a really lovely colour scheme, make this not un- worthy of a painter who is said to have influenced Tiepolo, and who was the greater man’s brother- in-law. Antonio Canale, born in 1697 and dying in 1768, and Francesco Guardi, fifteen years younger, are IRoorn £111. — Sala Dei ffmesista 313 the two painters of the eighteenth century whose entire talents were devoted to reproducing the out- ward aspects of their city. Though they are less alike in their renderings than the ordinary ob- server supposes, neither ever tired of portraying the streets, the piazzi, the canals, the palaces, and the churches of the Queen pf the Adriatic. Even to-day the pictures by these two men are sought for with avidity by the connoisseur and the dilet- tante. Canaletto’s art was more exact, more pho- tographic, more true. His drawing was infinitely superior to Guardi’s, and his perspective was mar- vellously perfect. His treatment of light and shade shows less forced contrasts than does that of Guardi, the latter achieving by this very means a brilliance, a sparkle, an iridescence of tone that seldom appears in the canvases of the more re- strained Canaletto. Guardi is an idealist where Canaletto may be called a realist. At times Guardi’s works show a poetic vision rare with Canaletto, but on the other hand Guardi’s very lack of the sterner foundation of his art gives his buildings, his towers, his churches, an unstable, unbuilt appearance. Mr. Simonson, in his appre- ciation of Guardi, admirably sums him up as fol- lows : “ The great charm of his best paintings con- sists in the bloom which he imparted to them. . . . they have an appearance of freshness as if they had 3i4 Zhc Brt of tbe Venice Bcabem^ only just been painted. The harmony o»f soft tones peculiar to his pictures may be likened unto that of the colours of the rainbow, in which each colour passes over into the one next to it almost imperceptibly. Soberness of tone is a character- istic common to all his works. ... In the treat- ment of colour he aimed at decorative harmony rather than truth.” “ Canale,” says the same critic, “ did not harmonize his tones as perfectly as Guardi, and was not, generally speaking, as good a colourist as his pupil. His schemes of colour are severer than Guardi.” Neither one of these two men is adequately represented at the Academy. Indeed, the finest works of each are to be found, not in Italy, but in England. The best of the three Canale’s is the one in Room 14, the Scuola Grande of S. Marco. This is small, but light and bright in tone, with the sunlight dancing on the right side of the pic- ture, the left thrown into shadow. Gondolas and boats of all sorts are seen at the left on the Canal Mendicanti; at the right is a view of the Scuola, which is now the city hospital, and the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo>. On the quay are a number of promenaders. In the same room are several canvases by Guardi. One, which has been catalogued under the name of Canale, is the Courtyard of a Palace, with the deli- Hoorn flTfflL — Sala &et paesista 315 cate fagade and stairways and porticoed entrances that can only be found in Venice. His most beau- tiful work here, however, is the view of S. Giorgio Maggiore, which was presented to the Academy by Prince Liechtenstein. At the left are shown the fagade of the church, the cupola, and the Cam- panile. On the right, with the sea against the hori- zon between, is the Island of the Giudecca with II Redentore. The entire foreground is the Grand Canal filled with fishing-boats and barks of all sorts. The rippling of the waves, sun-kissed, the depth of tone in the wide-arching sky, the softness of the middle distance, are here Guardi at his best. Of the four pictures catalogued under Tiepolo’s name, St. Joseph with the Child Jesus accompanied by Four Saints, which is in this room, is the only one in the Academy given him by Berenson. It is a characteristic composition, with amazingly clever drawing and a striking use of shadow. In the foreground, on the lowest step of what is presumably an altar within a church, kneels St. Francis of Paolo, in his t monk’s robes, with the hood pulled over his head. He is leaning forward on his staff, but instead of gazing altarward his face is turned around over his shoulder, his eyes straying out of the picture. On the pedestal before him Joseph is holding the Child Jesus. He is a 316 Ube Hrt ot tbe IDenlce Bcabemp fat, solidly built infant, with large, steady eyes, and thick curling hair, and only the glow about his head differentiates him from any baby of the eighteenth or the present century. Joseph, who stands behind him, is an impressive, if slightly melodramatic, figure. He is in full face, and the light strikes him sharply across the forehead and floods the left side of his head, throwing the other into deep, resonant shadow. This shadow spreads over his entire right shoulder, arm, and chest, making the brilliantly lighted flesh of the baby’s body all the more marked against this sombre back- ground. Joseph’s left hand is pressed against his heart, and he is apparently begging for his precious charge the mercy of Heaven. More appealing than his pleading, emotion-stirred face is that splendidly drawn hand, with the light and shadow playing so marvellously upon it that it seems positively artic- ulate with expression. Just as realistic, if some- thing less fine in feeling, are the joined hands of Anna, who, represented as an old but still vigorous woman, is kneeling at the right of the pedestal. The shadow mostly envelops her, but her hands, her left shoulder, and left side of face are thrown into light only less intense than that which plays over the baby’s body. Behind her, one leaning against a huge cross, the other in profile beside him, are two tonsured saints, the serene contem- ST. JOSEPH WITH THE CHILD JESUS ACCOMPANIED BY FOUR SAINTS By Tiepolo IRoom fimh-Sala bex paeststa 3*7 plation of the latter a foil for the wrinkled, lined, agonized face of the other. Here, as in most of Tiepolo’s canvases, it is over- expression, theatric gestures, and facial contor- tions that cheapen the artistic value of works that, nevertheless, are of undoubted genius. In this room is one example of that side of Tie- polo’s art in which he was unquestionably the greatest. For it is as a decorator of walls and ceil- ings that the eighteenth-century painter is most audaciously extraordinary, most triumphantly suc- cessful. His frescoes show him the lineal descend- ant of the greatest Venetian mural painter of the sixteenth century, Paolo* Veronese. St. Helena Finding the Holy Cross is a round ceiling fresco painted originally for the Church of the Capucines at Castello. It has been restored, but for once the renovator did not succeed in spoil- ing the beautiful creation. The clear, silvery lights, the harmony of the darker, richer tones, the daring originality of the composition, the extraor- dinary foreshortening, showing such complete mas- tery of perspective and construction, — all this, remarkable as it is, is nothing compared with the luminosity that radiates from the whole surface and makes it seem as if one’s eyes were actually gazing into unfathomable ether. Standing on what might be a cornice of a mar- 3 l8 Zhc Hrt of tbe IDentce Bca&entp ble temple that rises high against the sky, is St. Helena. Dressed in richest satins that almost over- whelm her with their billowing folds and flying draperies, a string of pearls in her blond hair, she is showing to the gathered peoples of the earth the True Cross. This is held in place before her by the bare, straining, muscular arms of half-nude men. At the foot of the cross kneels a white-bearded bishop in elaborate dalmatic. In front of him, at the lower, outer edge of the circle, are a workman with a long-handled spade, a dog, other men, and horses, all in an inextricable confusion. Across from Helena, on what appears like an open car, are the sick and wounded, stretched on mattress or held up by others, all gazing with adoring faith at the cross. Behind them, only partly within the composition, comes a galloping steed bearing a plumed, helmet ed knight riding as if on a race with death itself. All this part of the composition fills considerably less than half the circle. The rest is sky and clouds and floating-winged babies, cher- ubim, and soft-robed angels swinging censers and holding the placard marked I. N. R. I. The light- ness and delicacy of the sky and the lilt and spring of these angelic forms are fairly indescribable. ST. HELENA FINDING THE HOLY CROSS By Tiepolo CHAPTER XVI. LOGGIA P ALLADI AN A AND FIRST AND SECOND COR- RIDOR Much spoiled by the cracking of the paint and probably by the restorer, is the long wall-panelling in the Loggia Palladiana, by Tiepolo, called the Brazen Serpent. It is probably not wholly by Gianbattista, but may have come from his studio where his son and other assistants helped him with his large decorative work. The subject gives opportunity for the display of wonderful knowledge of the human figure, and in the twisted, bent, doubled-up, and contorted limbs, arms, and bodies of these anguished Israelites Tiepolo proves his mastery incontrovertibly. The suitability of its subject for pictorial decoration might be as much questioned as that of the Mas- sacre of the Innocents, about which Ruskin could find nothing too bad to say. In Loggia Palladiana, as well as in the first cor- ridor and in Room 19, Feti has examples of his works. By far the best of these is the one called 319 3 2 ° Ube Brt ot tbe Dentce Bcabetnp Melancholy, which is in the Loggia. This is the figure of a woman similar to one by him in the Louvre, and it is painted with real expression and feeling. Domenico Feti was a Roman, born in 1589 and dying at Venice in 1624. He was a pupil of Ludovico Cardi, and is enrolled among the natn- ralisti, though he studied perhaps most of all the works of Giulio Romano. He painted Biblical and mythological scenes as well as portraits, and his oil-paintings are decidedly better than his frescoes. He is mostly represented by small genre pictures, but some of his portraits are spirited and lifelike. By Placido Fabris are eleven pictures, all in the Loggia. Of these, Amour and Psyche is one of the least attractive. It depicts Psyche nude to her hips, lying back on a rock within a grotto, her eyes lifted to Amour, who is poised just above her head, an arrow in one hand, the other touching her curly hair with its finger-tips. They are very ordinary types, and might better have posed as chorus for a comic opera. Skill in modelling and graceful handling of draperies do not save the picture from being hopelessly decadent. Far different is the Portrait of the Dead Canova. Here is no straining for effect, no sinking into the merely pretty, no catering to the lowered taste of the times. It shows only the head of the dead PORTRAIT OF THE DEAD CANOVA By Placido Fabris Xoggia pallafciana 321 sculptor lying back in profile on the pillows, the eyes half-closed, the long Roman nose and iron jaw attenuated by age and illness. It is painted broadly, simply, and with a rigid insistence upon truth that in its very barrenness of presentation possesses an infinite pathos. But it is in such a portrait as that of Captain Gaspar Craglietto where Fabris is seen at his best. It is the likeness of an elderly man, facing three- quarters to the right, while his eyes are turned to the left. He wears a high stock, has thin, white, curling hair, with neither beard nor moustache to help cover up that pleasant but determined mouth with its long upper lip. The keenness of regard in those wide-open eyes is indicative of the abounding life expressed in the whole countenance. Every- where, in the firm planes of the flesh, in the sharp, decided lines of the contour, it is that impression of life, vitality, actuality, that Fabris has succeeded in expressing to a remarkable extent. The smooth- ness of the modelling and the exquisite handling of the brush help rather than hinder this impres- sion. The Flemish painter of dogs, birds, and all kinds of game, who ranks hardly second to Snyders, has only one picture in the Academy, which, though a characteristic, is far from being a celebrated piece. Scarcely any one could portray dead game as could 2,22 TTbe Hr t of tbe Venice Bcabemp Jan Fyt. His brush was so supple, so light, so minute, and at the same time so broad in its ex- ecution, that he was particularly happy in his ren- dering of fur and feathers. He was born in Ant- werp nearly thirty years after Snyders, but he outlived him only four years, dying in 1651. His dogs are as wonderful creations as are those by the older man, and his pictures of hunts are as full of life and fire. The Dead Game piece by him in the Loggia Palladiana is not up to his capabilities, but the dead hare and partridge and the dog look- ing in at the spoils give some idea of his flexible brush in the treatment of feathers and fur. Shown at more nearly his true worth is Honde- coeter with his two canvases in the Loggia. One of these represents the victorious survivor of a cock-fight. These battles of the barnyard were favourite themes with him, and he has painted many bitter onslaughts where feathers were fly- ing, where beak and spur, claws and wings, were as deadly weapons as gun or bayonet. Here the encounter is over. His enemy is vanquished, and the great white rooster stands with feet planted wide apart, his ruffled but uninjured wings slightly spread, his white breast swelling with the glory of victory, his eye blazing gratification, his beak open, proclaiming far and wide the news of his might and power. At his feet at the left is his BATTLE OF COCKS By Melchior d’Hondecoeter %o03ia pailaMana 323 opponent, his eye already glazing in death. On a rock at the right is a white hen, her whole mien one of frenzy, whether in joy or grief at her lord’s triumph, who shall say? The other canvas is a quieter scene, showing a handsome white hen in a yard with four chickens, and slightly back a rooster standing on a rock with all the assurance and ease of the lord of the manor. At the left is a peacock. Hondecoeter’s tendency to black shadows is seen in both of these, but on the whole they show his consummate mastery in portraying the forms, the characteristics, and the habits of the poultry-yard. Melchior d’Hondecoeter was a pupil of his father, Gijsbert, a little known painter, and later on of J. B. Weenix, who was his uncle. He was born in Brabant in 1636, but moved early to Amsterdam and died there in 1695. Hondecoeter is the Van Dyck of the poultry-yard. His cocks, hens, ducks, geese, and pigeons have the dignity, the suavity, the ease of high breeding, the brilliant robes, and the perfect aplomb of Van Dyck’s por- traits of royalty. No one else has ever so truth- fully, so vigorously, so intimately portrayed the domestic feathered tribe. His brush was light and sure, and his knowledge of bird and poultry an- atomy was prodigious. He never failed, either, to indicate with unerring touches the individual 3 2 4 Ufoe Htt of tbe Uentce Hcabemp characteristics of his model. His presentation of the lordly pride and unquenchable self-assurance of Mein Herr, the “ Cock of the Walk,” was glee- fully appreciative of the mightiness of him de- picted. But no touch of caricature, no hint of the human point of view, ever entered to spoil the ab- solute naturalness of his portrait. Hondecoeter painted not only the ordinary denizens of the barn- yard, but swans, parrots, peacocks, and other for- eign birds as well. Generally speaking, his colour may be called extremely brilliant and clear. In the shadows, however, he frequently shows a heavy darkness, and at times this dun-coloured note strays even into his lights. It is for historical rather than artistic reasons that Le Brun’s painting of the Magdalen deserves attention. When, after the downfall of Napoleon, France was ordered to disgorge the art treasures which her conquering armies had brought in tri- umph from the Italy they had pillaged, she used every possible means to disregard the command. All sorts of expedients were attempted to prevent the return of the priceless art gems. Various pic- tures and statues entirely disappeared, and of others it was stoutly maintained that they did not belong to the nations claiming them. In most cases, however, she was forced to give up her spoils. In one signal instance, nevertheless, she Xoagia pallaMana 325 scored victoriously. Veronese’s great Cena, which Napoleon had sent home from Venice, was declared by the authorities of the Louvre to be in such frail condition that another removal would unquestion- ably wreck it for ever. And so persistently did she urge this, backed up by the unmistakable in- juries which its journey from Venice had wrought upon it, that finally she won the day. The Cena stayed in Paris, and for it in exchange France sent to Venice this flamboyant Magdalen, by her own son of a degenerate art, Le Brun. Consider- ing the fact that some of the highest authorities on the ethics of war and conquest believe that France had a right to keep a certain part of her ceded treasures, one can hardly help smiling in sympathy with the adroitness of the Gallic wit in this case. At the same time the Academy of Ven- ice is no place for such a work as this poor sample of the art of Louis XIV. It represents the interior of a rich festival-hall of classic lines of architecture, in the centre of which, on a couch beside a table elaborately spread, lies Jesus, dressed in a red robe and blue mantle, his profile turned to the right, his hand extended to the Magdalen, who is kneeling before him with her hands joined in prayer. Her dress is blue, over which is a mantle of yellow. At the left is a merry company in Oriental costumes. Above, 326 tTbe Hrt of tbe IDenice Bcabemp from the ceiling, is suspended a green drapery, and in the background near a wall is seen a young page preparing an incense. Nothing in this picture is simple, natural, or direct. The overloaded dra- peries, forced gestures, red tones, crowded compo- sition, and whole theatric grandiose aspect are characteristic of the man who was fit exponent of the follies, grandeur, and interminable posings of the Grand Monarque. Ruskin’s scathing compari- son of the two pictures is really not overdrawn. “ The Cena of Paolo Veronese being worth, I should say, roughly, about ten good millions of sterling ducats, or twenty ironclads; and the Le Brun worth, if it were put to its proper use, pre- cisely what its canvas may now be worth to make a packing-case of.” Very mediocre works are mostly in the corri- dors, among them canvases by Palma Giovane, Domenico Tintoretto, Feti, Bordone, and Padova- nino. Francesco Beccaruzzi, who was a pupil of Por- denone, has in the first corridor a picture which has been considered by Riaolfi as his masterpiece. This is St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. It is a large composition with life-size figures. In the foreground are the six saints, Ludovic, Damian, Catherine, Jerome, Paul, and Anthony, bearing their emblems. St. Francis is removed somewhat %OQQia pallafctana 327 from this group, and kneels on a hillock in the middle distance, near some trees. Beyond is a wide-stretched landscape. From the sky above rays of light are spreading out, descending to the lifted hands of the kneeling saint. Cherubim and the crucifix can be seen in the centre of this heavenly glory. The compositional qualities of this picture are excellent, and some of the heads are finely delineated, St. Catherine being especially lovely. The picture was painted for an altar-piece in the Church of the Franciscans at Conegliano. Perhaps as satisfactory as any of these generally very unsatisfactory pictures in these halls are sev- eral canvases by Padovanino of children. They show a side of his art in which he was unusually successful. Before him Italian painters had seldom succeeded in painting childhood. They could de- pict baby angels or putti at the foot of the Ma- donna’s throne, but when it came to simple, every- day children, they generally failed. Their tiny boys and girls look mostly like diminutive men and women. Padovanino has been called a mere imi- tator of Titian and Veronese. In his pictures of children, at least, if nowhere else, he shows real originality. And perhaps his greatest claim to artistic immortality is the fact that he was prac- tically the first Italian to paint childhood success- fully. CHAPTER XVII. ROOM VI. — SALA DEL CALLOT. ROOM VIII. SALA DEI FIAMMINGHI With the exception of the canvases by foreign painters, which are in the Loggia Palladiana, Rooms 6 and 8 hold practically all the works by non-Italian painters in the Academy. As has been already said more than once, these are with few exceptions extremely poor examples of the art of the men whose works they purport to be. There are so few that are worth considering at all that they may be briefly mentioned here in the order of the date of their production, irrespective of which room they are in. Undoubtedly one of the most important of all these foreign pictures is the portrait which is now generally ascribed to Roger Van der Weyden, but which, till very recently, was given to Hugo Van der Goes. It is in Room 8, and is a panel painted on both sides. The outer and principal surface is the half-length portrait of a man turned three- quarters to the left, his hands joined prayerwise, 328 tRoom 101L — Sala Del Gallot 329 his heavy-lidded eyes gazing into the distance straight before him. It is a youthful, beardless face, his black hair banged across his forehead, but at some height above his strongly marked dark eyebrows, his nose long and of delicate outline, his lips full, and chin and neck both long. Long, too, are the slender fingers, with some of the joints puffed out of regularity, though the back of the hand is soft and smooth, with a tendency to flesh and dimples. He is clad in an outer cloak of brown, buttoned tight about his throat, the sleeves and neck edged with gray fur. The background is green, and on it at the left is traced the word Raison , and opposite, Lensaigne. The minute, miniaturelike execution and the flat- ness of the tones do not at all derogate from the wonderful modelling of the face and hands. Where later art has used strongly contrasted shadows to attain the effect of roundness, Van der Weyden and all the early Northerners achieved much the same result by a delicate manipulation of tones which melt one into another with scarcely any variation in depth or intensity. Not less remarkable is the personality here expressed. The face is not typi- cal, but extremely individual, portraying a person- ality with a frankness that is extraordinarily subtle. Equally carefully characterized are the hands, hands that could never have belonged to any one 33° TEbe Hr t ot tbe IDenice HcabeniE but this long-featured, dreamy-eyed youth with the high, square forehead and straight brows to coun- terbalance the overfull lips and slightly too thick chin. It is a portrait, in other words, of a living man, so vividly executed that it comes to us like a revelation. Roger Van der Weyden was born probably in 1400 at Tournay. He settled early in Brussels, however, and it is that town which became the seat of the school of art claiming him as founder. It is uncertain whether he received direct lessons from the Van Eycks, or whether he, like all the painters of his day and region, merely fell under their influence. In 1449 he went to Italy, and it is this journey which has been credited with being the original cause of the introduction into the art of Flanders of certain Italian tendencies. Van der Weyden's art is more animated, more brusque, more exaggerated than Van Eyck’s. He elongates his forms often to excess, he has much less poise, and far less serenity than the older man. At his best, nevertheless, he has a real power of pathos and suggestiveness that shows him worthy of being the teacher of Memlinc, which is after all his greatest claim on the gratitude of posterity. In Room 8 is another excellent portrait, which is ascribed somewhat questioningly to Antonis Mor. It is a half-length figure of an elderly woman fac- IRoom ID1K — Sala Dei Caliot 331 ing three-quarters to the right, dressed in black, wearing a white cap and cuffs and frill around her neck. Her right hand is resting on a table covered with a gray cloth. About her waist is a gold chain, and rings are on her fingers. It is a portrait that is full of life and character, painted with the Dutch attention to detail. She has small, sharp eyes, nostrils decidedly curved and cut under, closely closed lips, and strongly marked corners of the mouth. The flesh-tones are luminous and of ex- cellent colour, the shadows warm and unforced. The hands are beautifully drawn and modelled. Certain technical attributes of the picture have sug- gested Tintoretto’s brush to some critics, but Tin- toret seldom or never showed such finish of parts. Mor was born in Utrecht in 1512 or thereabouts, and was a pupil of Jan Van Scorel, who had been in Italy and who had attempted to inoculate his pupils with a mixture of Raphael and Michelangelo, highly seasoned with the idiosyncrasies personal to himself as well as to the Northland. Anton Mor, however, was too great a spirit to be annihilated by any such training. He remained as M. Alex- andre notes, always a pure Hollander, the Italian influence only adding a charm to the Dutch char- acteristics. His portraits are remarkable tran- scriptions of nature, with no detail omitted, yet with nothing so emphasized as to detract from the 332 Ube Hrt of tbe tDentce Hcabems main point, the real character portrayed. Of all the painters of the early Dutch school he had the strongest feeling for beauty and grace. Neither the Hermit by Matthew Bril nor the View of Tivoli by his brother Paul, both in Room 6, gives much idea of the talent of these two Ital- ianized Flemings. They do show to some extent, however, the general characteristics of the two men who were employed by Gregory XIII., by Sixtus V., and by Clement VIII. in decorating chambers and halls in the Vatican and Sistine Chapel. Matthew died in 1584, when thirty-six years old, but Paul lived longer and achieved great distinction. It is said that his influence can be traced in some of Claude Lorrain’s canvases. Bril’s colouring was marked by a strongly insistent note of green that had a tendency in foliage and grass to become too blue. He displays a firm, free han- dling, distributes his light and shade with a prac- tised eye, and has a certain poetry in composition that, while at times it borders on the grandiose, is generally as pleasing as it seems natural. There are seven pictures in Room 6 which are ascribed perhaps rather doubtfully to Cornelis de Wael. Of them all the Soldiers Resting is more nearly characteristic of this artist who is best known as a painter of historical battles and animals. Wael, though Antwerp born, acquired much of his IRoom m. — Bala Dei Gallot 333 education in Italy, and it was there that he won the reputation which in his day, the first half of the seventeenth century, was considerable. His horses are drawn with much spirit and truth, and he expressed with no little dramatic fire the rush and onslaught of contending armies. Adriaen Van Ostade, who, was one of the great- est “ little masters ” of Holland, has one poor ex- ample of his style in Room 6. It is an Interior of an Inn, and shows two men in the foreground sitting at a table, one holding a glass in one hand, a pitcher in the other. The second is not interested in food, but is devoting his attention to playing his violin. Near them stands a third calmly ob- serving while he smokes his pipe. In the distance near a door three other peasants sit drinking about a table. Van Ostade had a facility of execution not far behind that of Hals, of whom he was a pupil. He had beside a marvellous gift for composition, a f colour sense as glowing, deep, and rich as Rem- brandt’s, and at times surpassing that master in the luminous colour-notes in his shadows. He had a pencil that drew with astonishing perfec- tion and reality, and above and beyond all, a vi- tality and actuality of perception and execution. These last two qualities, actuality and vitality, are what make his scenes of Dutch peasant life so full 334 TLbc Brt of tbe IDenice Hcafcems of power that the spectator feels as if he were taken straight into the lives of these humble citizens. His brother Isack at first imitated Adriaen al- most exclusively, and his picture here of the Man Drinking, in the same room, is an example of his early style. Later he developed his own individ- uality, and now he is best known as the painter of winter outdoor scenes of Holland. A none too good specimen of this class of his work is also in the same room. Adam Elsheimer, one of the few Germans to reach even second-rate rank as a painter after the death of Durer and Holbein, has one tiny canvas in Room 8, which may or may not be actually by him. It is St. Peter Denying Christ, and shows at least some characteristics, in its careful work- manship and brightness of tone, especially, of the man whose works both Rembrandt and the elder Teniers studied. Elsheimer was born in Frank- fort in 1574, but almost all his life was spent in Italy, so that from one point of view he can hardly be called an exponent of German art. He was never, however, a copyist of Italian painters. In fact, he followed no one either in style or subject. His works are almost all very small, and are fin- ished with such extreme care and minute pains- taking that it is no wonder he left so few behind him. He is chiefly known as the painter of land- IRoont m. — Sala Del Callot 335 scapes, which are but the settings for historical or religious scenes. As the whole composition frequently measures less than a foot square, his figures are of necessity extremely small. They are capitally drawn, however, and equally admirable is his rendering of trees, fields, running water, grass, and sky. He was extremely fond of startling contrasts of light and shade, and precedes Rem- brandt in his treatment of chiaroscuro. A Woman Fainting, in Room 8, is now ascribed to Jan Ochter veldt, though it was formerly supposed to be a Terborch. Near a table with a red cover a woman lies on the floor in a white satin robe, her breast uncovered, her head on cushions, her eyes closed, the abandonment of her figure showing she is quite unconscious. Two other women are about her in anxious attendance, and farther back at the right a doctor is showing a bottle to a servant. At the left two other servants are admitting a visitor. Jan Ochterveldt, born, it is supposed, at Rotter- dam somewhere near 1635, is called an imitator and pupil of Metzu, but his work often recalls more forcibly both Pieter de Hooch and Gerard Terborch. He followed Terborch’s method of chiaroscuro more or less skilfully, and his colour, though grayer than either of the others, partakes now of one and then of another of the three. The Study of a Writer, in Room 8, was once 336 tTbe Brt of tbe tDenice Bcabemp thought to be by Rembrandt. It is now called by Thomas Wyck, who is better known as an etcher than as a painter. He was born in Haarlem, in 1616, but is supposed to have worked a great deal in Italy, the subjects of his pictures seeming to be proof of this. He painted seaports and ruins on the seashore, but it is as the painter of alchemists in their studies that he is seen at his best. His handling of light in those compositions has been likened to Rembrandt’s in similar subjects, and other pictures by him besides this here have been ascribed to the more famous man. This one represents the interior of a small study, full of books and papers. At a table, in nearly full face, is the scholar, writing in a huge book before him. He is clad in a great coat with red cuffs. A window, which lights the scene, breaks one of the walls, and at the left is a large map of the world. Of the four pictures in Room 6 which have been attributed to Van Dyck, not one is unquestionably his. The portrait of a small girl holding an apple, and dressed in a dark blue silk frock, with a white cap and apron, has been frankly called a copy of a portion of one of the portraits which Van Dyck executed for the Stuart family, the original being, according to the catalogue, in the Royal Gallery at Turin. The two small heads of sleeping children are tRoom M.-Saia bei Callot 337 charming in colour and line, and show much of that fresh, free touch so peculiarly Van Dyck’s own. But they are probably, or very likely, by some imitator rather than by Van Dyck himself. The Christ on the Cross is more certainly his, though M. Jules Guiffrey does not catalogue it in his list of Van Dyck’s achievements. To all except the most discriminating and accomplished critic, however, this little canvas seems almost as worthy of the painter as the one in Antwerp, and fully up to the level of the less disputed Crucifixion in the Borghese. Van Dyck repeated many of his compositions over and over again. First, un- doubtedly, because actual repetition of this or that scene already painted was demanded by his patrons. Second, because Van Dyck’s creative powers were not those of a great painter. Originality in com- position was not his to any extreme degree. He frequently copied the well-known compositions of Rubens almost without the addition or change of a single point. The fact, however, that he could produce so many of these simple, unattended Cru- cifixions, and yet keep in each, as it were, the orig- inal point of view, so that each seems to have sprung from his brain with all the power and fer- vour and direct appeal of a first impression, is a proof of the histrionic ability of Van Dyck. The canvas here is very small, measuring a little 33 s Ube Hrt of tbe Uentce Hcabems over two feet square. Against a lurid sky, with the horizon line near the base of the cross, which is reared high, reaching nearly the top of the can- vas, is the Crucified One. His arms are out- stretched, pinned by iron staples to the cross-bar, his feet nailed together on the upright beam. He is nude save for the loin-cloth. There is nothing above or below him to indicate his connection with the world of man except the fluttering placard nailed above his head, bearing the mocking jibe of his executioners. His head has sunken back on to his shoulder, his mouth is open, his eyes turned upwards in a very agony of pleading despair. No- where, however, in that nobly lined face is there any puerility or weakness. Van Dyck has focused the light sharply on the body from the chest down on to the thighs. The face and arms and lower parts of the legs are in a half-tone that deepens on the left side of the figure into a widening line of shadow. With the angry, murky sky for background, this centraliz- ing of the light gives a dramatic quality that is one of the most noticeable of Van Dyck’s character- istics. The body of Christ is that of a young, per- fectly developed, rarely beautiful man. About him is no sign of asceticism or emaciation. He is shown in the full glory of life, nailed to the cross of death. The poignant power of this figure has mom tDI. — Sala Dei dallot 339 rarely been equalled, still more seldom excelled. Perhaps only Rembrandt touched a higher, more divine expression. Technically, those little Crucifixions of Van Dyck are equal to> his best works. The flesh is painted with the full, soft, sure brush, with that plastic touch that belonged to Van Dyck both by right of his training under Rubens and by his as- similation of the methods of the Italians. The colour is clear, silvery, almost opalescent, in its exquisite gradations, the modelling simple, smooth, inevitable, the drawing accurate but not slavish, with that spring of line and life of curve that were perhaps Van Dyck’s alone, neither inherited nor acquired. Anton Van Dyck was born in Antwerp in 1599 and died in London in 1641. Below Rubens as historical painter and far below him in creative genius, he outranks him as a portrait-painter. In that line, indeed, he has been called the leader of the world. While that is perhaps hardly the criti- cal opinion that can stand, he was unquestionably one of the greatest painters of aristocracy that ever lived. To' all his sitters he gave a courtly air that changed his simple squires and burghers into prince and noble. He was the favourite painter of Charles I. of England, and his very greatest portraits are of that king and his children. The court that 340 ube Brt of tbe Dentce Hcabemp Cromwell overthrew exists more vividly on the canvases of the Fleming than in any page of his- tory. There is about all his best works a brilliance and a personal charm, a something that takes one captive whether one will or no. And if it is as a portrait-painter that he ranks highest, some of his religious scenes have a piety, a personal, vibrating note of appeal that place them, emotionally, at least, on a higher level than those of Rubens. The one picture in the Academy which has been ascribed to Metzu is more than likely by some in- ferior workman. It is in Room 8, and is called A Woman Sleeping. The subject of the scene is sitting in a chamber in full face, dressed in a red skirt, blue apron, and violet waist, a white shawl over her shoulders, and a white bonnet on her head. Her eyes are closed, her left elbow rests on the table beside her, and her hands are crossed. The open book on her knees evidently could not hold her attention, nor, judging from the commonplace, stolid lines of her face, does one wonder! There is little or none of the delicate atmospheric envelope that is so characteristic of Metzu, and both the composition and the colouring are far below his standard. Gabriel Metzu was born in Leyden probably about 1630, and was a pupil of Gerard Dou. His works partake more of the style of Terborch, how- IRoom m\. — Saia bel Callot 341 ever, and it is thought that the influence of Steen, who was an intimate friend, can be felt in some of them. As a rule, Metzu, like Terborch, chose oftenest for representation scenes from so-called “ polite society.” Occasionally, too, he painted a Market Day or a Country Fair with all the bril- liance and truth and with none of the vulgarity of a Steen. Generally, however, he is seen at his best in parlour or boudoir interiors, where the rich furniture, soft satin gowns, and dainty or aristo- cratic accessories all add to the effect of ease and luxury that none of the “ little masters ” could better portray than he. Critics are not apt to place him on so high a plane as Terborch, yet it is in- contestable that his domain was larger, and that he was fully equal to him as draughtsman and col- ourist, nor did he fall behind him in his use of chiaroscuro'. In Room 8 two canvases by one other of these Northern men display his talents a little more ade- quately. The first of these, Grace before Meals, though not one of his noted works, does give some idea of the style and ability of Jan Steen in his more restrained and quieter mood. It shows the interior of a country family’s dining-room, its walls hung with domestic utensils, baskets, kettles, hats, a banjo, a picture or two. At the left is a double window, one-half with its latticed panes closed, 342 xibe Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabemi? the other open to sky and trees, a bit of grape-vine falling in from its framing. In the left centre is the table spread with the rough, homely peasant meal. The father sits on one side, his chair pushed far back, his elbow on his knees, holding his tall, felt hat before his face. Opposite him is his wife, dressed in a red skirt, blue waist, and white ker- chief, holding a white-capped nursing baby in her arms, while a second little tot stands beside her. Between the father and mother, facing the spec- tator, stands the heir of the family, cap in his awkward hands held against his blouse, saying the blessing before the meal. It is a very serious, pro- found effort, to judge from his worried, intent expression. The management of light here is char- acteristic of Steen. It falls exactly and inevitably upon the precise places that need emphasis. It strikes only the top of the bowed head of the father, but plays fully over the mother’s face and breast and the baby in her arms. The boy’s shoulder and cheek and forehead are brought out sharply, also, with a half-shadow over his thick lips and stubby nose. And finally, at the right, the family dog, licking up the spilled porridge, is in the direct rays that come in from the open window, thus ad- mirably completing and balancing the composition. There is, from one point of view, nothing beau- tiful about this picture. The peasant types have GRACE BEFORE iRoorn M. — gala fcei Callot 343 no charm of line or contour, the ugly furniture and coarse fare are what no well-recognized “ can- ons of art ” would ever admit in a picture. Yet charm there is in plenty, and poetry, too, of a truer, more real, and penetrating rhythm than in all the productions of the so-called classic school. The handling of the light, the homely pathos of the situ- ation, the intensity of the actuality of presentation, — these after all are what are more essential to real art than all the prescribed rules of beauty. The second picture is called the Astrologer’s Family. It is an interior again, with a woman, dressed in a 3>ellow skirt, gray waist, and white veil, turning to the left listening to the astrologer reading from a volume which he holds in his left hand. He is clad in a brown greatcoat, green head-dress, and black bonnet. At the right are four children and at the left two men, one poking the fire, the other writing. In the foreground at the right is a dog drinking from a porringer. This is of less interest and of le£s artistic value than the other. Jan Steen was born in Leyden near 1626 and died in 1679. He was a pupil of Adriaen Van Ostade, and it is probably from him that he ob- tained his remarkable understanding of chiaros- curo, the secrets of composition, and the power of making colours glow and gleam with a brilliancy 344 Ube Brt of tbe IDenice Bcabems quite independent of their highness of key. His subjects, too, were chosen largely from the same source as Van Ostade’s, — the daily life of the people of Holland. But here resemblance largely ceases. It is never Ostade’s point of view that Steen presents. Never Ostade’s nor any one’s but his own. He has been likened to the English Hogarth, but after all he was entirely different. If he moralized when he showed his countrymen drinking and carousing in low pot-houses, his pic- tures do not show it. He was as impersonal an observer, one feels, as was ever Shakespeare, and he could be as absolute and unbiassed a chronicler when showing the wholesome, daily home life of reputable earnest citizens as in depicting a drunken brawl or vulgar country dance. It was life, life as he saw it and as it actually existed that he was most interested in, and that he insistently por- trayed. If in many of his scenes there is felt to be a satirical glee that critics have compared to the cynicism of Moliere, it is there, if one may so ex- press it, rather by the very nature of the case than because it represents Steen’s own particular atti- tude. Joined to an extraordinary keenness of ob- servation, he had a remarkable power for telling a story, and this power his mastery of the laws of composition continually augmented. No Dutch- man has ever equalled him in his distribution of IRoom ID 1L - Sala Del Callot 345 mass, in his balance of parts, in his understanding and proper presentation of climax. So much of Steen’s work deals with the lowest life in Holland that he has been credited with being himself a roysterer, a vagabond, and a drunkard. Modern exploration in old documents and musty records has pretty well demonstrated that he has been most unjustly maligned. The very volume of his works, which Smith catalogues as over five hundred, it would seem, ought alone to disprove the charge. For most of these pictures are little below his own high average, and a drunken arm and unsteady eye could surely never have produced them. There is one portrait in Room 8 which the new catalogue ascribes to Hans Memlinc, but which Lafenestre and others still call an Antonello da Messina. It seems to be a mixture of the manner of Roger Van der Weyden and Menlinc. It repre- sents a youth depicted only to his chest, facing three-quarters to the left, his right hand resting on the edge of the frame at the left lower corner. The lack of construction in this hand and wrist is in strong contrast to the careful accuracy in the treat- ment of the face, neck, and shoulders. The young man has on a close-fitting, high-buttoned coat, showing a bit of white at the throat. A round cap is on the back of his head, displaying to its utmost 346 Ube Brt o t tbe IDentce Bcabems the full waving hair banged across his forehead and coming to the base of his neck and almost covering his ear. His nose is long, straight, and rather thick, his under lip full, his eyes slightly lowered, with heavy upper lids, under straight, widely separated eyebrows. Back of him is a land- scape background. The expression is pensive, and the whole effect is that the picture must have been a wonderful portrait. If by any chance it is by Antonello it is far and away better than the other two panels credited to him in the Academy. THE END. BibUoorapb£ Architectural Publication Society. — Dictionary of Architecture. Alexandre, Arsine. — Histoire Populaire de la Peinture : £cole Italienne. Alexandre, Arsine. — Histoire Populaire de la Peinture: ficoles Flamande et Hollandaise. Allen, Grant. — Venice. Anderson, Wm. J. — The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy. Baedeker. — Northern Italy. Berenson, Bernhard Study and Criticism of Italian Art. Berenson, Bernhard. — Lorenzo Lotto. Berenson, Bernhard The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. Berenson, Bernhard. — The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. Berenson, Bernhard. — The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. Blashfield, E. H., and E. W., and A. A. Hopkins. Vasari’s Lives of the Painters. Brown, H. F. — Venice, an Historical Sketch of the Republic. Buisson, Jules Jean Battiste Tiepolo et Dominique Tie- polo, in Gazette des Beaux Arts. Buxton, H J., and E. J. Poynter. — German, Flemish, and Dutch Painting. Burchardt, Jacob. — Der Cicerone. Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. 347 348 iBtbliograpbs Blanc, Charles. — Histoire des Peintures de Toutes ies £ coles. Crowe, J A., and G. B. Cavalcaselle A New History of Painting in Italy. Crowe, J. A., and G. B. Cavalcaselle. — History of Paint- ing in North Italy. Crowe, J. A., and G. B. Cavalcaselle. — Early Flemish Painters. Crowe, J. A., and G. B. Cavalcaselle. — Life of Titian. Conti, Angelo. — Catalogo delle Regie Gallerie di Venezia. Castelar, Emilio. — Old Rome and New Italy, translated by Mrs. Arthur Arnold. Cummings, Charles A. — A History of Architecture in Italy. Cartwright, Julia. — Mantegna and Francia. Cole, T., and W. J. Stillman. — Old Italian Masters. Cole, T., and J. C. Van Dyke. — Old Dutch and Flemish Masters. ChenneviLres, Henri de Les Tiepolo. Cox, Kenyon. — Old Masters and New. Cust, Lionel. — Anthony Van Dyck. Douglas, Langton, and S. Arthur Strong. — Editors of Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s History of Painting in Italy. Eastlake, Charles L. — Notes on Principal Pictures in the Royal Gallery at Venice. Ebe, Gustav. — Die Spat Renaissance. Estaunie, Edouard. — Petits Maitres. Flagg, Edmond. — Venice, the City of the Sea. Fletcher, Bannister F. — Andrea Palladio, His Life and Works. Fromentin, EugLne — Les Maitres d’Autrefois. Fry, Roger E. — Giovanni Bellini. Gautier, Theophile. — Voyage en Italie. Gautier, Theophile, Arsine Houssaye, Paul de Saint- Victor. — Les Dieux et Les Demi-Dieux de la Peinture. Goethe, Johann - Wolfgang. — Italienische Reise. asibltograpbg 349 Hare, A. J. C. — Venice. Havard, H La Peinture Hollandaise. Hazlitt, W. C. — The Venetian Republic. Holborn, J. B. Stoughton. — Jacopo Robusti, Called Tintoretto. Janitschek, Hubert. — Paolo Caliari, in Kunst und Kiinst- ler Italiens. James, R. N. — Painters and Their Works. Justi, Carl. — Diego Velasquez, und Sein Jahrhundert. Karoly, Karl A Guide to the Paintings of Venice. Keary, M. — Catalogue of the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice. King, Bolton. — A History of United Italy. Kristeller, Paul. — Andrea Mantegna. Lafenestre, Georges La Peinture Italienne. Lafenestre, Georges.- — La Vie et L’CEuvre de Titien. Lafenestre, Georges, et Eugene Richtenberger. — La Peinture en Europe: Venise. Layard, Austin. — Kugler’s Handbook of Painting, Italian Schools. Longfellow, Wm. P. P. — Cyclopedia of Architecture in Italy, Greece, and the Levant. Macmillan’s Guide to Italy. Mantz, Paul. — Les Chefs d’CEuvre de la Peinture Italienne. Meissner, Franz Hermann. — Veronese. Meissner, Franz Hermann. — Tiepolo, in Kiinstler Mono- graphien. Michiels, Alfred. — Histoire de la Peinture Flamande. Molmenti, P. — Carpaccio, Son Temps et Son (Euvre. Molmenti, P. — La Peinture Venetienne, Traduit de 1’Italien par M. J. de Crozals. Moureau, Adrien. — Antonio Canal, dit le Canaletto. Muntz, E. — Histoire de l’Art Pendant la Renaissance. Muntz, E. — La Renaissance en Italie et en France a l’Epoque de Charles VIII. Okey, T. — Venice and its Story. 35 ° JBibltograpbg Osler, W. Roscoe. — Tintoretto. Os waldo, Pietro Paoletto di — L’Architettura e la Scul- tura del Rinascimento in Venezia. Pauli, G. — Venedig. Pinacoteca dell’ Imp. Reg. Accademia delle Belle Arti : Venezia, 1834. Ricketts, C S. — The Prado and Its Masterpieces. Rose, George B. — Renaissance Masters. Roscoe, Thomas. — Lanzi’s History of Painting in Italy. Rosenberg, Adolf. — Adriaen und Isack Van Ostade. Rushforth, G. McNeil. — Carlo Crivelli. Ruskin, J. — The Relation between Michelangelo and Tintoret. Ruskin, J. — Guide to Principal Pictures in Academy of Fine Arts at Venice. Scott, Wm. B. — Venetian Painters. Simonson, George A. — Francesco Guardi. Smith, John. — A Catalogue Riasonnd of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. Spooner, Shearjashub. — Dictionary of Painters, En- gravers, Sculptors, and Architects. Stanley, George. — Synopsis of Dutch and Flemish Painters. Stearns, Frank Preston — Life and Genesis of Jacopo Robusti. Stranahan, C. H. — A History of French Painting. Sturgis, Russell. — Dr. Wilhelm Liibke’s Outline of the History of Art. Taine, H. — Voyage en Italie. Taine, H. — Lectures on Art, Translated by John Durand. Thayer, William Roscoe. — A Short History of Venice. Thode, Henry. — Tintoretto. In Kiinstler Monographien. Viardot, Louis. — Les Musdes d’ltalie. Waagen, G. F. — Kugler’s Handbook of Painting: German, Flemish, and Dutch Schools. Waters, W. G. — Piero della Francesco. Btbliograpbs 35 1 Wauters, A. J. — La Peinture Flamende. Wiele, Marguerite Van de. — Les Freres Van Ostade. Wedmore, Frederick. — The Masters of Genre Painting. Woltmann and Woekmann. — History of Painting. Yriarte, Charles. — Paul Veronese. Zacher, Albert. — Venice as an Art City. Zanotto, FRANgois. — Edifices et Monuments Remarqua- bles de Venise. fnber Alexandre, M., 52, 92, 307, 331. Aliotti, Cherubino, 21. Angelico, Fra, 24-25, 57, 71. Anton ello da Messina, 48, 58, 60- 62, 345, 346 ; Ecce Homo, 58- 59 ; Annunciation, 58, 59-60. Antonio Veneziano, 25-26, 29; Triptych, 26. Aretino, 165. Barbari, 74. Bartolommeo Vivarini. See Vi- varini, Bartolommeo). Basaiti, Marco, 76-77, 207 ; Dead Christ, 75, 76; St. Anthony and St. James, 75, 76; Scene at Gethsemane, 131-132; St. George and the Dragon, 132- 133; Calling of the Sons of Zebedee, 170-17 1. Bassano, Francesco, 246, 248, 297. Bassano, Jacopo, 244-246, 297. Bassano, Leandro, 244, 246, 297 ; Resurrection of Lazarus, 246- 248; Doge Marcantonio Memmi, 246, 248-249. Bastiani, 99, tot. T23, 126, 133; Gift of the True Cross, 101- 102. Battista. See Piazzetta. Beccaruzzi, Francesco, 326; St. Francis Receiving the Stig- mata, 326-327. Bellini, Gentile, 57, 79, 81, 92- 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 109, 141, 165 ; Doge Lorenzo Giusti- niani, 92 ; Legends of the True Cross, 94-97. Bellini, Giovanni, 48, 49, 57, 61, 62, 68, 70, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81-83, 92 , 9 3> IOI > i04> *05, 118, 121, 123, 129, 131, 132, I 35> 137, 138, i39> r 5 8 ’ i6 5> 168, 169, 192, 200, 202, 206, 207, 213, 244, 272; nine ex- amples of Madonna and Child, 83-89 ; five allegorical subjects, 89-91 ; Madonna of San Giobbe, 1 54-1 57. Bellini, Jacopo, 79-80, 92, 141, 144, 213; Madonna and Child, 79, 80-81. Bellini family, 44, 66, 1 18, 197, 206. Bello, Marco, 131 ; Madonna and Child, etc., 131. Berenson, Bernhard, 43, 48, 49, 52, 58, 61, 62, 68, 71, 74, 1 15, 139, I42, 146, I79, 189, 201, 203, 204, 205, 209, 217, 245, 258, 282, 315. Bernasconi, 275. Bissolo, Pier Francesco, 27, 138 ; Coronation of St. Catherine, 136-137; Dead Body of Jesus, etc., 137 ; Presentation in the Temple, 137; Vir- 353 354 fln&ei gin and Child, etc., 137- 138. Blanc, Charles, 187, 210, 250, 254,311- Blashfield and Hopkins, 117, 160, 189. Boccaccino, Boccaccio, 62, 66- 67 ; Marriage of St. Cather- ine, 62-64 » Madonna and Child, 65 ; Christ and the Doctors, 65; Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples, 66 . Bonifazio (I., II., III.), vi, 176, 205, 245, 271-275 ; Rich Man’s Feast, 272, 275-279, 284; Judgment of Solomon, 279- 280 ; Adorations of the Magi, 280; Woman Taken in Adul- tery, 280-281 ; Massacre of the Innocents, 281-282 ; Jesus and Philip, etc., 282-283 ; Christ Enthroned, 283-284 ; Madonna in Glory, etc., 284 ; various panels, 284. Bonvincino, Alessandro. See Moretto da Brescia. Bordone, Paris, vi, 285, 326 ; Fisherman Returning the Ring, 284, 286-290; Paradise, 285-286. Botticelli, 69. Bril, Matthew, 332; The Her- mit, 332. Bril, Paul, 332 ; View of Tivoli, 332. Burckhardt, 135, 285. Busi, Giovanni de’. See Cariani. Cagliari, Benedetto, 249 ; Last Supper, 249, 250; Christ Be- fore Pilate, 249, 250. Cagliari, Carletto, vi, 190, 249; Way to Calvary, 250-251. Cagliari, Paolo. See Veronese. Campagnola, Domenico, 22. Canale, Antonio, 31 2-314 ; Scu- ola Grande of S. Marco, 314. Canaletto. See Canale, Antonio. Caravaggio, 149-15°* I 5 I > 3 11 5 Homer, 148-149. Cardi, Ludovico, 320. Cariani, 203 ; Portrait of a Man (two examples), 203, 258; Holy Conversation, 203-205 ; Mother and Child, etc., 204, 205; Portrait of a Woman, 261-262. Carpaccio, Vittore, 61, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103-105, 123, 132, 133, I 35> Life of St. Ursula, 103, 105-117, 126, 157; Pres- entation, 126,157-161; Meet- ing of Joachim and Anna, 126- 1 28 ; Crucifixion of a Thou- sand Christians, 128. Carriera, Rosalba, 303-305 ; various portraits, 303- 3°4- Catena, 77-78, 134, 138, 208; St. Augustine, 77-78 ; St. Jerome, 78 ; Madonna and Child, etc., 78. Cavazzo, Thomas, 21. Chardin, 245. Cima da Conegliano, 67-69; Pieta, 68, 71-72; Tobias with the Angel, etc., 69-71; In- credulity of St. Thomas, 70, 72-73; Madonna Enthroned, etc., 73-75; St. Christopher, 75; Virgin Enthroned with Six Saints, 168-170. Contarini, Giovanni, 293-294 ; Venus, 293. Cordeliaghi, 206. Correggio, 172, 194, 263. Cozzi, Marco, 21. Crivelli, Carlo, 118-120; St. Jerome and St. Augustine, 120; St. Peter and St. Paul, 120-121. Crivelli, Vittore, 121 ; Four Saints, 121. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 35, 36, 68, 70, 74, 86, 87, 95, 97, 98, 133* I 35’ *38, 200, 206, 207, 263. Iln&er 3SS Dario of Treviso, 43. Diana, Benedetto, 27, 133—134 ; Brethren Distributing Alms, 133; Madonna and Child, with St. Jerome, etc., 134-135 ; Virgin with Four Saints, 1 35 — 1 36 ; Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, etc., 208-209. Domenico Veneziano, 144. Donatello, 56-57, 144. Donato Veneziano, 121 ; Pieta, 1 21 ; Crucifixion, 1 21-122. Dou, Gerard, 340. Duccio, 29. Diirer, 334. Eastlake, Sir Charles, 136, 159, 209, 237, 281. Elsheimer, Adam, 334-335; St. Peter Denying Christ, 334. Fabriano, Gentile da, 26, 29, 38, 79, 141-143; Madonna and Child, 1 43-1 44. Fabris, Placido, Amour and Psyche, 320 ; Portrait of the Dead Canova, 320-321 ; Gas- par Craglietto, 321. Feti, Domenico, 319-320, 326; Melancholy, 320. Fiore, Jacobello del, 34; Coro- nation of the Virgin, 34-36; Justice, 36-37 ; Virgin and Child, 37. First Corridor, 326-327. Francesco, Piero della. See Piero. Francia, 68, 147. Fry, Mr., 84, 85, 89. Fyt, Jan, 321-322; Dead Game, 322. Gaddi, Agnolo, 25. Gentile da Fabriano. See Fa- briano. Giambone, 38. Gianbattista. See Piazzetta. Gianbellini. See Bellini, Gio- vanni. Giorgione, 66, 77, 81, 82-83, 1 18, 138, 139, 157, 165, 167, 179, J 97> 200, 202, 203, 261, 263, 285. Giotto, 23, 25, 26. Giulio Romano. See Romano. Goes, Hugo Van der, 328. Goya, 301. Guardi, Francesco, 3 12-314; Courtyard of a Palace, 314- 315; S. Giorgio Maggiore, / viii, 315. Guercino, 31 1. Guiffrey, Jules, 337. Hals, 333. Hogarth, 307, 344. Holbein, 334. Hondecoeter, Gijsbert d’, 323. Hondecoeter, Melchior d’, 32 2- 324- Hooch, Pieter de, 306, 335. Kugler, 34, 44, 206, 209, 245, 263, 291. La Fosse, 299. Lafenestre, 139, 203, 204, 284, 345- Lambertini, Michele di Matteo, 41-42 ; altar-piece, 41-42. Lanzi, 66, 310. Layard, 28-29, l 9 7- Lazzari, Francesco, 16. Lazzarini, Gregorio, 298, 302,31 1. Le Brun, Magdalen, viii, 324- 326. Leonardo da Vinci, 20, 57, 67, 167, 168, 172, 272. Loggia Palladiana, 319-326, 328. Longhi, Pietro, 305-307 ; Apoth- ecary’s Shop, 307 ; Concert, 308-309 ; Dancing Master, 3°9-3 10 - Lorenzo Veneziano, 27, 29; An- cona, 27-28; Sts. Peter and Mark, 28 ; Annunciation, 28- 29. ifn&ei 35 6 Lorrain, Claude, 332. Lotto, Lorenzo, 49, 167, 200, 202, 203, 220, 282. Ludwig, Gustave, 274, 275. Mansueti, Giovanni, 97, 101, 102, 133; Life of St. Mark, 97-99; Healing of the Daughter of Benvenuto, 99-100; Burial of an Unbeliever, 100-101 ; Vir- gin and Child "with Saints, 122; Five Saints, 122-123. Mantegna, Andrea, 40, 44, 53, 56-58, 67,79, 81,92, 1 18, 123; St. George and the Dragon, 53-56, 132. Marconi, Rocco, 138-139; Jesus between Two Saints, 139; Woman Taken in Adultery, 139, 209-210; Descent from the Cross, 139-140; Saviour between St. Peter and St. John, 210, 292. Martino da Udine, 33, 196; Two Annunciations, 197-199 ; Holy Family, 199-200. Marziale, Marco, 131 ; Supper at Emmaus, 130. Masaccio, 25. Massari, Giorgio, 12, 13. Mauro, Antonio, 16. Mazza, 222. Meldola, Andrea. See Schia- vone, Andrea. Memlinc, Hans, 107, 330, 345- 346 . Messina, Antonello da. See An- tonello da Messina. Metzu, Gabriel, 335, 340-341 ; Woman Sleeping, 340. Michelangelo, 20, 67, 150, 168, 174, 177, 180, 181, 182, 224, 230, 242, 244, 263, 272, 296, 33 1 - Molin, Girolamo, 18. Molmenti, 103, 209, 252, 253, 254, 274, 285, 31 1. Monet, 176. Montagna, Bartolommeo, 74, 1 23-1 24; Madonna and Child, etc., 1 24-1 25; Jesus between St. Roch and St. Sebastian, 125. Mor, Antonis, 331-332 ; Portrait, 330-33I- Morandi, Gian Maria, 310. Morelli, 43, 52, 61, 66, 70, 77, 79, 86, 200, 203, 206, 208, 209, 258, 270, 273, 275, 277, 280, 283, 284, 285, 291. Moretto da Brescia, St. Peter, 290; St. John the Baptist, 290-291. Moschini, 275. Muntz, 57, 66. Murano, Da. See Vivarini. Negretti, Giacomo. See Palma Giovane. Nelli, Ottavanio, 142. Niccolo di Maestro Pietro, 29-30. Nuzi, Allegretto, 142. Ochterveldt, Jan, Woman Faint- ing, 335* Ostade, Adriaen Van, 333-334, 343-344 ; Interior of an Inn, 333- Ostade, Isack Van, Man Drink- ing, 334. Oswaldo, Prof. Pietro Paoletti, 65, 139, 205, 274. Padovanino, 253-255, 326, 327; Marriage Feast at Cana, 253, 255 - 2 57 . Palladio, 1,9-13, 16, 17. Palma Giovane, vi, 222, 249, 251-252, 275, 295, 326; Tri- umph of Death, 252-253; Choice of the Twelve Hun- dred, 253. Palma Vecchio, vi, 62, 76, 138, 139, 165, 176, 191, 197, 199* 200-203, 251, 271, 272, 282, 291 ; Assumption, 201, 262- 263 ; Christ and the Adulteress, 201, 260-261 ; St. Peter En- Tfnfcei 357 throned, 201, 258-260; Holy Family, 199-200, 201, 258 ; Por- trait of a Woman, 261-262. Parentino, Virgin and Angel of the Annunciation, 43-44. Pellegrino da S. Daniele. See Martino da Udine. Pennacchi, Girolamo (elder), Transfiguration, 128, 129; Christ before the Doctors, 1 29-130. Pennacchi, Girolamo (younger), 129. Pennacchi, Pier Maria, 128, 129. Perugino, 66, 67. Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista, 196, 305,311; Fortune-teller, 3 1 1— 312. Piero della Francesco, 52, 144- 146; St. Jerome, 146-147 Piombo, Sebastiano del, 203. Pisanello, 38, 142. Ponte, Jacopo da. See Bassano, Jacopo. Pordenone, Giovanni Antonio da, vi, 33, 197, 263-265; St. Lorenzo Giustiniani, etc., 263, 265-269; Madonna del Car- melo, 269-270 ; Portrait of a Woman, 271. Previtali, Andrea, 204, 205-206 ; Madonna and Child, etc., 204, 205-206. Raibolini, Jacopo, Madonna and Child, 147. Raphael, 20, 168, 180, 263, 272, 292, 298, 331. Rembrandt, 167, 243, 245, 268, 333, 334, 335, 336, 339- Ribera, Jusepe, 151 ; Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, 150, 151- *53- Ricci, Sebastiano, 298-299 ; Rape of Europa, 298 ; Diana at Her Bath, 298 ; Healing of the Man with Palsy, 298. Ricketts, 1 51 . Ridolfi, 326. Risegatti, Antonio, 16. Rizzo, 204. Robusti, Domenico. See Tinto- retto, Domenico. Robusti, Jacopo. See Tintoretto. Romanino, 197, 291. Romano, Giulio, 320. Room I., 21-42. Room II., 154-195. Room III., 141-153. Room IV., 249. Room V., 118-140. Rooms VI. and VIII., 328-346. Room VII., 196-210, 258. Room IX., vi, 219-257, 294. Room X., vi, 258-296. Room XI., 244, 294, 297. Room XII., 297-302. Rooms XIII. and XIV., 244, 303-3 1 8 . Room XV., 92-102. Room XVI., 103-117. Room XVII., 43-78. Room XVIII., 79-91. Room XX., 211-218. Rosalba. See Camera, Rosalba. Rossetti, W. M., 188. Rubens, 188, 337, 339, 340. Ruskin, 2, 17, 31, hi, 158, 168, 181, 182, 184, 186, 194, 215, 227, 233, 241, 319, 326. Sala dei Bassano. See Room XI. Sala dei Belliniani. See Room V. Sala dei Bonifazi. See Room X. Sala dei Fiamminghi. See Room VIII. Sala dei Friulani. See Room VII. Sala dei Maestri Primitivi. See Room I. Sala dei Paesista. See Room XIII. Sala dei Secoli, XVII. and XVIII. See Room XII. Sala del Callot. See Room VI. Sala del Carpaccio. See Room XVI. 35« lln&ei Sala del Tiepolo. See Room XIV. Sala dell’ Assunta. See Room II. Sala della Presentazione. See Room XX. Sala di Gentile Bellini. See Room XV. Sala di Giovanni Bellini. See Room XVIII. Sala di Paolo Veronese. See Room IX. Sala Scuole Varie Italiane. See Room III. Sansovino, 9, 11. Santa Croce, Francesco and Gi- rolamo da, 206-208 ; Vision of Christ to the Magdalen, 207; Various saints, 208; Scourging of Christ, 208. Sassoferrato, 138. Savoldo, 134. Schiavone, Andrea, 292-293 ; Jesus Enchained, 292 ; Jesus before Pilate, 292 ; Circum- cision, 292. Sebastian, Lazzaro. See Bas- tiani. Second Corridor, 326, 327. Semitecolo, Niccolo, 29-30 ; Cor- onation of the Virgin (1), 30- 32 ; Virgin and Child Adored by the Donor, 32 ; Coronation of the Virgin (2), 32-33. Simone da Cusighe, 33 ; Virgin of Pity, 33-34 ; Entombment, 33- Simone dal Peron. See Simone da Cusighe. Simonson, 313. Sismondi, 7. Smith, 345. Snyders, 321, 322. Spagnoletto, Lo. See Ribera, Ju- sepe. Squarcione, Francesco, 52, 56, 118, 128, 129, 134, 135. Steen, Jan, 341,343-345; Grace before Meals, 341-343; As- trologer’s Family, 343. Symonds, 183. Teniers, 334. Terborch, 306, 335, 340-341. Tiepolo, Domenico, 299. Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 298, 3 0I ~3 02 , 3°5*3 12 ; Hol y Fam- ily Appearing to St. Gaetano, 299-300; St. Joseph with the Child Jesus, etc., 31 5-317; St. Helena Finding the Holy Cross, 317-318; Brazen Ser- pent, 319. Tintoretto, 118, 167, 1 71-172, 179-185, 186, 188, 189, 191, 213, 217, 219-221, 235, 244, 251, 257, 264, 272, 293, 302, 331 ; Miracle of St. Mark, 172— 175 ; Death of Abel, 1 7 5— 178 ; Adam and Eve, 175-176, 178-179; Doge Alvise Moce- nigo, 221 ; Portrait of a Man, 221—222 ; Antonio Cappello, 222; Marco Grimani, 222- 223 ; Andrea Cappello, 223 ; Battista Morosini, 223; Virgin Enskyed, etc., 223-225; Ma- donna, etc., Adored by Three Senators, 225-226; Pieta, 226- 227 ; Crucifixion, 227-229 ; Ma- donna with Three Saints, etc., 229-230; Woman Taken in Adultery, 230-231. Tintoretto, Domenico, vi, 294, 326 ; Pietro Marcello, 294 ; Christ Scourged, 294 ; Ma- donna and Child, etc., 294. Titian, 62, 81, 83, 89, 90, 95, 1 18, 164-168, 172, 176, 179, 180, 181, 184, 186, 189, 191, 197, 200, 202, 213, 219, 222, 241, 244, 245, 254, 256, 261, 263, 264, 265, 272, 280, 284, 285, 291, 293, 301, 302, 327; frieze in Room III., 141 ; Assump- tion of the Virgin, vii, 161- 164; Presentation, vii, 213- 216; John the Baptist in the Desert, 216-217 ; Jacopo So- ranzo, 217-218 ; Pietk, viii, 294-296. itn&ei 359 Tura, Cosimo, 52; Madonna and Child, 52-53. Udine, Girolamo da, 74. Udine, Martino da. See Mar- tino. Van Dyck, Anton, 323, 336, 339- 340; Christ on the Cross, 337- 339- Van Eyck, Jan, 60, 330. Van Scorel, Jan, 331. Varotari, Alessandro. See Pado- vanino. Varotari, Dario, 253. Vasari, 25, 26, 35, 57, 60, 77, 81, 1 13, 145, 165, 167, 200, 203, 291. Vecelli, Tiziano. See Titian. Velasquez, 146, 301. Veronese, Paolo, vi, 93, 104, 179, 184-190, 249, 250, 251, 253, 255> 2 5 7’ 291, 293, 299, 301, 302, 306, 317, 325-326, 327; Feast in the House of Levi, 188, 231, 239-244; Venice En- throned, 190-192; Holy Fam- ily, 192-195 ; Four Apostles, 232 ; People of Mira, etc., 232 ; Life of St. Christina, 232-233; Crucifixion, 233-234 ; As- sumption of the Virgin, 234- 235, 249; Virgin in Glory, 235- 236 ; Battle of Lepanto, 236- 237 ; Coronation of the Vir- gin, 237-238 ; Annunciation, 238-239. Vicenzo di Biagio. See Catena. Vinci, Leonardo da. See Leo- nardo da Vinci. Vitruvius, 10. Vivarini, Alvise. See Vivarini, Luigi. Vivarini, Andrea, 39-40, 126. Vivarini, Antonio (da Murano), 37- 39’ 4L 44’ 48, 79? Paradise, 38- 39, 43 ; Virgin Enthroned, 21 1-213 Vivarini, Bartolommeo, 40, 41, 43, 44-47, 48 ; Madonna with Four Saints, 45-46 ; St. Bar- bara, 46-47 ; Mary Magdalen, ' 47 ; Scenes from the Life of Jesus, 47. Vivarini, Giovanni, Paradise, 38- 39, 43 ; Virgin Enthroned, 211- 21 3. Vivarini, Luigi, 22, 43, 44, 48-52, 61, 66, 68, 71, 74, 76, 77, 86, 101, 103, 104; Madonna and Child, 49-51 ; St. Clare, 51- 52 ; St. Sebastian, 68. Vivarini, Quirizio, 40, 41 ; Vir- gin Adoring the Child, 40-41; Ecce Homo, 41. Vivarini, school of the, 37, 79, 1 1 8. Wael, Cornells de, 332-333 ; Sol- diers Resting, 332. Weenix, J. B., 323. Weyden, Roger Van der, 330, 345; Portrait, 328-330. Whistler, 176. Wyck, Thomas; Study of a Writer, 335-336. Zelotti, 255. Zuccato, Sebastiano, 164. Zuccherelli (Zuccarelli), Fran- cesco, 3 1 0-3 1 1 ; Repose in Egyp^ 3 I0> % J GETTY CENTER LIBRARY IB I I I III ■ III III I II II III I III I III I I III II II III II III III I III I I III l I ll iiiiii aM»BDai!i