A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools

With regard to the execution of the picture (which was bought in 1846 and was alleged to have been damaged in cleaning), Ruskin wrote: "I have seldom met with an example of the master which gave me more delight, or which I believed to be in more genuine or perfect condition… (The critic's) complaint of loss of substance in the figures of the foreground is, I have no doubt, altogether groundless. He has seen little southern scenery if he supposes that the brilliancy and apparent nearness of the silver clouds is in the slightest degree overcharged; and shows little appreciation of Velazquez in supposing him to have sacrificed the solemnity and might of such a distance to the inferior interest of the figures in the foreground… The position of the horizon suggests, and the lateral extent of the foreground proves, such a distance between the spectator and even its nearest figures as may well justify the slightness of their execution. Even granting that some of the upper glazings of the figures had been removed, the tone of the whole picture is so light, grey, and glittering, and the dependence on the power of its whites so absolute, that I think the process hardly to be regretted which has left these in lustre so precious, and restored to a brilliancy which a comparison with any modern work of similar aim would render apparently supernatural, the sparkling motion of its figures and the serene snow of its sky"111 (Arrows of the Chace, i. 58-60).

198. THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY

Annibale Carracci (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). See 9.

The legend of the temptation of St. Anthony, here realistically set forth, is the story of the temptations that beset the ascetic. In the wilderness, brooding over sin, he is tempted; it is only when he returns to the world and goes about doing good that the temptations cease to trouble him. St. Anthony lived, like Faust, the life of a recluse and a visionary, and like him was tempted of the devil. "Seeing that wicked suggestions availed not, Satan raised up in his sight (again like Mephistopheles in Faust) the sensible images of forbidden things. He clothed his demons in human forms; they hovered round him in the shape of beautiful women, who, with the softest blandishments, allured him to sin." The saint in his distress resolved to flee yet farther from the world; but it is not so that evil can be conquered, and still "spirits in hideous forms pressed round him in crowds, scourged him and tore him with their talons – all shapes of horror, 'worse than fancy ever feigned or fear conceived,' came roaring, howling, hissing, shrieking in his ears." In the midst of all this terror a vision of help from on high shone upon him; the evil phantoms vanished, and he arose unhurt and strong to endure. But it is characteristic of the love of horror in the Bolognese School that in Carracci's picture the celestial vision does not dissolve the terrors.

199. LESBIA AND HER SPARROW

Godfried Schalcken (Dutch: 1643-1706).

Schalcken was probably a pupil of Gerard Dou (see 192), whose delicate finish he sought to rival. "But the smooth, polished surface of his works is unpleasant, and the labour bestowed upon them is too obvious" (Burton). He spent the greater part of his life at Dort, but he was employed for some time in England by King William III. In addition to his genre pieces, Schalcken painted numerous portraits, and also attempted sacred subjects. He especially excelled in pictures of candle-light.

A picture in illustration of a Latin poem, as befits a painter whose father was headmaster of a Latin school (at Dort). Lesbia is weighing jewels against her sparrow, which she loved better even than her own eyes —

Mourn, every Venus, every Love!Gallants gay, mourn every one!My darling had a favourite dove,That she did prizeAs her own eyes —Her dove is dead and gone.G. R., from Catullus, iii.

200. THE MADONNA IN PRAYER

Sassoferrato (Eclectic: 1605-1685).

Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato from his birthplace, not far from Urbino, is generally described as a follower of the Carracci, but he seems to have been chiefly a copyist of Raphael, Perugino, and other early masters. Compare Sassoferrato's Madonnas with the earlier models, and the distinction between sentimentality and sentiment becomes plain. His works are, however, marked by real feeling, and he maintained a certain elevation of style.

202. DOMESTIC POULTRY

Melchior de Hondecoeter (Dutch: 1636-1695).

This painter, a member of a noble family of Brabant, devoted himself to the poultry-yard, and became famous for his pictures of fowl and other birds. His compositions show a constant study of the subjects he treats. He studied first under his father, Gysbert de Hondecoeter, and afterwards under his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix (1096).

"A beautiful brood of young chickens in the foreground. The cock was Hondecoeter's favourite bird, which he is said to have taught to stand to him in a fixed position as a model." (Official Catalogue).

203. CONVENTUAL CHARITY

William van Herp (Flemish: 1614-1677).

Works by W. Van Herp, a member of the Painters' Guild at Antwerp, are not numerous. They show the influence of Rubens and also of Jordaens, the two leaders of the Flemish School at his time.

Franciscan friars are distributing food to the poor at the gate of a convent.

204. DUTCH SHIPPING

Bakhuizen (Dutch: 1631-1708).

Ludolf Bakhuizen comes second in the succession of Dutch sea painters to W. van de Velde, and the reader is referred to the remarks on that painter (see under 149) for the general characteristics of them both. Whereas, however, Van de Velde preferred calms, Bakhuizen preferred storms, and even "voluntarily exposed his life several times," says a compatriot, "for the sake of seizing, in all its horrible reality, the effects of rough weather" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 255). It cannot be said, however, that the result was very successful. There is, adds the same critic, a hardness about his forms and a want of transparency in his colours "which cannot be counterbalanced by the fury of upheaved waves or the furious driving of the heavy clouds across the sky." Bakhuizen, before he took to painting, was successively a book-keeper (his father was town-clerk of Emden) and a writing-master. Perhaps it is to his experience in the latter capacity that the hardness and "peruke-like" regularity of his waves are due. In his own day, however, his sea-pieces were very greatly esteemed. The King of Prussia was among his patrons, and the Tzar, Peter the Great, frequently visited his studios, and even himself took lessons of him. He made many constructive drawings of ships for that monarch. He was also an etcher, and the British Museum possesses a fragment of a sketch-book of his.

205. ITINERANT MUSICIANS

J. W. E. Dietrich (German: 1712-1774).

Johann Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich was born at Weimar, where his father was court-painter. So precocious was his talent that when only in his eighteenth year he was himself appointed court-painter to Augustus II., King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. In 1743 he went to Italy, and after this visit he turned his name into Italian by signing it Dietrici (as in the picture dated 1745). He was afterwards appointed keeper of the celebrated Gallery at Dresden, a Professor of the Academy there, and Director of the school of painting attached to the porcelain manufactory. His pictures and etchings are numerous. In his original work his style remained German. But he had also a remarkable facility in imitating the works of other painters. "He did more," says Merritt, the picture-restorer, "to confound collectors than all other imitators put together. Hundreds of his imitations of the various masters have been sold to second-rate amateurs for original productions" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 164).

206. THE HEAD OF A GIRL

Jean Baptiste Greuze (French: 1725-1805).

To understand the great reputation which Greuze enjoyed in his day one should remember, besides the prettiness of his pictures in themselves, the contrast which they afforded in their subject-matter to the art around them. Look, for instance, at 1090 and 101-104. Those pictures are nearly contemporary with Greuze's, and are typical, the first of the mythology, the latter of the courtliness, and all of the sensuality, of the current art of the time. The return to nature, the return to simpler life and sounder morals, which inspired Rousseau, found expression in Greuze's domestic scenes and sweet girl faces. "Courage, my good Greuze," said Diderot of one of Greuze's pictures of domestic drama; "introduce morality into painting. What, has not the pencil been long enough and too long consecrated to debauchery and vice? Ought we not to be delighted at seeing it at last unite with dramatic poetry in instructing us, correcting us, inviting us to virtue?"112 Greuze's art, in comparison with what was around it, was thus simple, natural, moral. Yet one sees now that something of the artificiality, against which his pictures were a protest, nevertheless affected them. For instance there is an obvious posing in this picture, just as there is a touch of affectation in 1154. Decidedly, too, Greuze "invests his lessons of bourgeois morality with sensuous attractions." There is neither the innocence nor the unconsciousness in the girls of Greuze that there is in those of Reynolds or Millais.

The life of Greuze is interesting for the curious instance it affords of the inability, which so many eminent men have shown, to know in what direction their best powers lay. Greuze's reputation rested on his genre painting – on his rendering of domestic scenes or faces; but his ambition was to figure as an historical painter. His one picture in this style – "Severus and Caracalla" (in the Louvre) – was painted in 1769 as his diploma work for the French Academy. They praised him for "his former productions, which were excellent," and not for "this one, which was unworthy alike of them and of him," and admitted him as a painter in the class of genre only. Greuze, who was vain and overbearing in the days of his vogue, was greatly incensed and ceased to exhibit at the Academy until after the Revolution. But his power had then begun to fail; the classic school reigned supreme; and Greuze, who had been unhappily married, and whose large earnings were squandered by extravagance and bad management, died in great poverty. He was born in Burgundy, of humble middle-class parents, in the little town of Tournus, where his modest birthplace may still be seen. His happiest productions were taken from the daily life of the middle-classes, and his sweet girl faces are unique in French art (Lady Dilke's article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Morley's Diderot, vol. ii. chap. iii.).

Campbell's "Lines on a picture of a girl by Greuze" may be quoted of this picture: —

What wert thou, maid? – thy life – thy nameOblivion hides in mystery;Though from thy face my heart could frameA long romantic history.Transported to thy time I seem,Though dust thy coffin covers —And hear the songs, in fancy's dream,Of thy devoted lovers.How witching must have been thy breath —How sweet the living charmer —Whose every semblance after deathCan make the heart grow warmer!

207. THE IDLE SERVANT

Nicolas Maes (Dutch: 1632-1693). See 153.

In the background is the family at dinner. The waiting-maid comes to the kitchen to serve the next course – the duckling, perhaps, which a cat is stealing – and finds the cook of Sancho Panza's philosophy: "Blessings on him who invented sleep, … the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, … the balance that equals the simple with the wise." Signed and dated 1655.

208. THE FINDING OF MOSES

Bartholomew Breenbergh (Dutch: 1599-1659).

Breenbergh, after visiting Italy, established himself in France, where, after the example of Poussin and Claude, he painted "classical landscapes," into which he introduced small figures, supposed to represent scenes from Holy Writ, etc. His work was in great request in France, and several of his pictures are now in the Louvre.

209. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS

Both and Poelenburgh (Dutch). See under 71 and 955.

The landscape by Both, the figures by Poelenburgh. For the subject of the judgment of Paris, see under 194.

210. VENICE: THE PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO

Francesco Guardi (Venetian: 1712-1793).

Francesco Guardi was a scholar and imitator of Canaletto. "Less prized during the heyday of his master's fame, he has been steadily acquiring reputation on account of certain qualities peculiar to himself. His draughtsmanship displays an agreeable stateliness; his colouring a graceful gemmy brightness and a glow of sunny gold. But what has mainly served to win for Guardi popularity, is the attention he paid to contemporary costume and manners. Canaletto filled large canvases with mathematical perspectives of city and water. At the same time he omitted life and incident. There is little to remind us that the Venice he so laboriously depicted was the Venice of perukes and bagwigs, of masks and hoops and carnival disguises. Guardi had an eye for local colour and for fashionable humours" (J. A. Symonds, "Pietro Longhi," in the Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889).

Notice the effect of light on the Church of St. Mark at the end of the square: "Beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away; – a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light" (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. iv. § 14).

211. A BATTLE-PIECE

Johan van Huchtenburgh (Dutch: 1646-1733).

Huchtenburgh was in great request as a battle-painter, and in 1708 was commissioned by Prince Eugene to paint the victories won by that prince and the Duke of Marlborough over the French.

212. A MERCHANT AND HIS CLERK

Thomas de Keyser (Dutch: 1596-1667).

This painter – the son of an eminent sculptor and architect – was born at Amsterdam, and was one of the chief forerunners of Rembrandt in the art of portrait painting. "If," says Burton, "in some of his work remains of the formality and stiffness of the sixteenth century may be traced, the greater number show a freedom and a sense of life unusual among those of his predecessors."

This picture – which is signed (on the mantelpiece) and dated 1627 – is interesting as showing us, in a particular instance, the condition of social and political life out of which the Dutch art of the seventeenth century arose. The merchant has his globes before him: he was one of those who had built up the riches of his country by foreign trade. But he is a man of taste as well as of business, and the two things are closely united.113 His office is itself hung with rich tapestry, and amongst the implements of his trade, his plans and books and maps, is a guitar. "The United Provinces, grouped together by the Convention of Utrecht (1579), … concentrated the public functions in the hands of an aristocratic middle class (such as we see them in Terburg's historical picture, 896), educated and powerful, eager for science and riches, bold enough to undertake everything, and persevering enough to carry their enterprises to a successful conclusion. The brilliant heroism, implacable will, and indefatigable perseverance which had aided the people to recover their liberty and autonomy were now directed to other objects… Their shipbuilders covered the seas with vessels, a legion of adventurous sailors went forth in all directions to discover distant shores or to conquer unknown continents… Gold was now to be found in plenty in the country which hitherto had been poor, and with the influx of riches, taste, luxury, appreciation of the beautiful and love of Art were developed" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 62).

213. THE VISION OF A KNIGHT

Raphael (Urbino: 1483-1520). See 1171.

This picture – with the original pen-and-ink drawing from which it was traced114– is the earliest known work of Raphael, painted when he was not more than seventeen and was "pluming his wings and meditating a flight." His first (or as it is commonly called, "Perugian") period may be divided into two: (1) Down to about 1500, before he went to Perugia, and whilst he was still studying at Urbino under Timoteo Viti; (2) From 1500-1504, at Perugia. This picture probably belongs to the former of these periods. It is unlike Perugino in several respects – in the landscape, for instance, and in the broad hand of the sleeping knight, whereas Perugino's hands are narrower and longer. In connection, too, with Raphael's early pupilage under a Ferrarese master, note that the figure of Duty is like Francia's saint in No. 638 (see further on this subject Morelli's Italian Pictures in German Galleries, pp. 285-340). The picture, which was at one time in the possession of Sir Thomas Lawrence, came to England from the Borghese Gallery at Rome. It was originally in the Ducal Palace at Urbino. "The subject breathes the very essence of that courtly and romantic atmosphere which haunted the palace of Urbino and may well have been inspired by the Duchess Elizabeth herself. This accomplished lady was the first to honour the son of her old friend Giovanni Santi with her patronage, and Raphael may have painted this little allegory for the decoration of her chamber, just as Costa and Mantegna painted their picture of Parnassus and the Muses for Isabella d'Este's grotto at Mantua" (Julia Cartwright: Early Work of Raphael, p. 12).

A young knight sleeps under a laurel – the tree whose leaves were in all ages the reward of honour; and in a dream of his future career he sees two figures approach him, between whom he has to make his choice. The one on the left speaks with the voice of Duty; she is purple-robed and offers him a book and a sword – emblematic of the active life of study and conflict. The other is of fair countenance and is gaily decked with ribbons and strings of coral. Hers is the voice of Pleasure, and the flower she offers is a sprig of myrtle in bloom – "myrtle dear to Venus." Raphael was thinking, perhaps, of the Greek story which told of the choice of Hercules. For Hercules, when he came to man's estate, laid him down to rest and pondered which road in life to take; and lo! there stood by him two women. And one of them took up her parable and said: "O Hercules, if thou wouldst choose the smoothest and the pleasantest path, then shouldst thou follow me." And Hercules said: "O lady, I pray thee tell me thy name." And she answered: "Those who love me call me Pleasure, and those who hate me call me Evil." Then the other woman came forward and said: "O Hercules, there is no road to happiness except through toil and trouble; such is the gods' decree, and if thou wouldst be happy in thy life and honoured in thy death, then up and follow me." And her name was Duty. And Hercules chose the better part, and went about the world redressing human wrong, and was reverenced by men and honoured by the gods —

Choose well; your choice isBrief, and yet endless.Here eyes do regard youIn Eternity's stillness;Here is all fulness,Ye brave, to reward you.Work, and despair not!Goethe, tr. by Carlyle (Past and Present).

214. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN

Guido (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642). See 11.

In pictures of this subject two distinct conceptions may be noticed. In some the coronation of the Virgin is, as it were, dramatic; the subject is represented, that is to say, as the closing act in the life of the Virgin, and saints and disciples appear in the foreground as witnesses on earth of her coronation in heaven. No. 1155 is a good instance of that treatment. This picture, on the other hand, shows the mystical treatment of the subject – the coronation of the Virgin being the accepted type of the Church triumphant. The scene is laid entirely in heaven, and the only actors are the angels of the heavenly host. Notice the carefully symmetrical arrangement of the whole composition, as well as the charming faces of many of the angel chorus.

215, 216. VARIOUS SAINTS. 115

School of Taddeo Gaddi (Florentine: 1300-1366). See also (p. xix)

Taddeo Gaddi was the godson and pupil of Giotto, with whom he lived twenty-four years, and whose tradition he faithfully carried on: art had "gone back," he used to say, "since his master's death." His most extensive works were the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (described in ch. iv. of Ruskin's Mornings in Florence). Taddeo was also distinguished as an architect. "He built the Ponte Vecchio, and the old stones of it were so laid by him that they are unshaken to this day."

There is an air of settled peace, of abstract quietude, about this company of saints which is very impressive – something fixed in the attitude and features recalling the conventual life as described by St. Bernard and paraphrased by Wordsworth in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets—

Here Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall,More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed,More safely rests, dies happier, is freedEarlier from cleansing fires, and gains withalA brighter crown.

218. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI

Ascribed to Peruzzi (Sienese: 1481-1536).

Baldassare Peruzzi, an excellent draughtsman and fair painter, was most distinguished as an architect. His life, says Sir Edward Poynter, was one which any artist might envy. "Brought up at his own wish as a painter at Siena, he soon gave evidence of such talent that he was entrusted with important commissions at Rome, making acquaintance by this means with one of the great Roman patrons of art, Agostino Chigi, the same for whom Raphael painted a chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. Baldassare found leisure to devote himself to the study of architecture; from this time he seems to have had almost the happiest lot that one can imagine falling to an artist, that of building palaces and decorating them with his own hand" (Lectures on Art, ch. viii.). Among these were the Farnesina Palace for Agostino Chigi, and the Palazzo Massimi, which is "justly considered one of the most beautiful and ingeniously constructed in Rome." It is characteristic of the taste of the time that what Vasari most admired in Peruzzi's buildings was "the decoration of the Loggia at the Villa Farnesina, painted in perspective to imitate stucco work." "This is done so perfectly," he says, "with the colours, that even experienced artists have taken them to be works in relief. I remember that Titian, a most excellent and renowned painter, whom I conducted to see these works, could by no means be persuaded that they were painted, and remained in astonishment when, on changing his point of view, he perceived that they were so." Baldassare also designed the fortifications of Siena, and on the death of Raphael was appointed architect of St. Peter's at Rome. His life was not free from adventures. At the sack of Rome in 1527 he was plundered of all he possessed by the Imperial soldiers, and was forced to paint a picture of their general, the Constable Bourbon, who had been killed in the assault of the city. He died at Rome, not without suspicion of having been poisoned, and was buried in the Pantheon, near the tomb of Raphael.

There is a drawing by Peruzzi of this subject in possession of the National Gallery, No. 167. Girolamo da Treviso (623) made a copy of it, which is perhaps this work. The figures of the three magi are interesting as having been portraits of Titian, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

219. THE DEAD CHRIST

Unknown (Lombard School, 16th century).

Perhaps to be ascribed to Bazzi (see under 1144).