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

194

The fondness of the Old Masters for the brute creation is illustrated in this picture, as in so many others. The ox is evidently fascinated by the music; the ass is disturbed and brays fiercely. Note also the goldfinch upon the roof.

195

"The painter must, for the present, remain as an unknown Umbrian, almost equally influenced by Pinturicchio and Signorelli, and with peculiar qualities of simple grace and romance, which give his work an extremely individual character" (Cruttwell's Signorelli, p. 117).

196

English readers will find some account, with occasional translations, of Poliziano's poem in Symonds's Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, ii. 334, and Renaissance, iv. 350. Symonds, had already remarked that much of the poem is like a picture of Botticelli. The same painter's "Birth of Venus" may have been suggested by stanza 99 of Poliziano, though the peculiar sentiment of that famous picture is the painter's own. See also under 916.

197

"We venture to ask," says Dr. Richter, "is this really an Italian picture?" (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 87).

198

The figures are by Tiepolo (see under 1192).

199

Visitors who have been to Venice will remember that "Carpaccio trusts for the chief splendour of any festa in cities to the patterns of the draperies hung out of windows" (Bible of Amiens, p. 3).

200

Or, according to Mr. Berenson, of Alvise Vivarini and Lotto (see his Lorenzo Lotto, pp. 113, 304).

201

It was exhibited at the "Old Masters" exhibition in 1873 as a Raphael. Mr. Ruskin, who had noticed it there, wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray, "Please look at the Raphael, and tell me how far the colour may have changed on St. John's shoulder and in Judas' dress, and how far the fantastic shot silks of this last are absolutely as they were."

202

It is a repetition with but slight variations of the Medici picture in the Uffizi.

203

"The early Italian masters felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master-craftsman who had mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, and took his name rather than their own; so that most of the great Italian workmen are now known, not by their own names, but by those of their masters (or of their native towns or villages – these being recognised as masters also), the master being himself often entirely forgotten by the public, and eclipsed by his pupil; but immortal in his pupil, and named in his name… All which I beg you to take to heart and meditate on concerning Mastership and Pupilage" (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 3, 4). Vasari's story may be true, says Dr. Richter, "even though no contemporary record of a goldsmith called Botticello has been found. We know, however, that he had a brother, Giovanni Battista, a carpenter and frame-maker of some repute, nicknamed Botticegli, i. e. 'Little Barrel'; this nickname may have been inherited by the younger brother" (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 48).

204

See Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery for the list, p. 46.

205

Reference may be made also to Mr. Swinburne's "Notes on Designs of the Old Masters at Florence" (first published in the Fortnightly Review for July 1868), in which he speaks of "the faint and almost painful grace which gives a distinct value and curious charm to all the works of Botticelli." At an auction in 1867 D. G. Rossetti picked up a Botticelli for £20. "If he had not something to do," writes his brother, "with the vogue which soon afterwards began to attach to that fascinating master, I am under a misapprehension." Pater's essay first appeared in the Fortnightly Review of August 1870. Ruskin's first mention of Botticelli was in a lecture delivered at Oxford during the Lent Term, 1871. Carpaccio had been proclaimed in a lecture of the preceding year, and it became a standing joke among the profane to ask who was Ruskin's last "greatest painter." It was in answer thereto that Mr. Bourdillon wrote:

To us this star or that seems bright,And oft some headlong meteor's flightHolds for awhile our raptured sight.But he discerns each noble star;The least is only the most far,Whose worlds, may be, the mightiest are.

206

"The dress appears to have been originally crimson or pink. If so, it has faded to so agreeable a tone that one could hardly wish it otherwise" (Poynter).

207

The visitor should contrast Canaletto's painting of still water with Turner's (see under 535).

208

"Upon asking how he had been taught the art of a cognoscento so very suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more easy. The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to two rules: the one, always to observe that the picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other to praise the works of Pietro Perugino" (Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xx.).

209

The author of the catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition of 1898 maintains that the two side panels are later in date than the central panel, and have no connection with it (p. xxxvii.).

210

Sir Walter Armstrong attributes No. 1079 to David. "The National Gallery possesses one of the best of David's authenticated works (1045), and a comparison between it and the "Adoration of the Magi," numbered 1079, goes far to prove them to be by one hand. Compare, for instance, the figure of the beggar in the one picture with that of St. Joseph in shadow behind the Virgin, in the other. And the evidence of style is confirmed by a curious discovery that I happened to make one bright day, when the glass was off the latter picture. Low down in the left-hand corner the word Ouvvater is written in a way that precludes the notion of forgery, for it has been scratched with, perhaps, the butt end of a brush, while the paint was still wet, so that the red under-painting shows through the letters. David was born at Ouwater, or Oudewater, about 1450, and did not migrate to Bruges till 1484" (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 29).

211

See Morley's Diderot, ii. 62. "Yet he cannot refuse to concede about one of Boucher's pictures that after all he would be glad to possess it. Every time you saw it, he says, you would find fault with it, yet you would go on looking at it. This is perhaps what the severest modern amateur, as he strolls carelessly through the French school at his leisure, would not in his heart care to deny."

212

Ruskin speaks under the head of typical beauty (of beauty, that is, as typical of divine attributes) of the absolute necessity in pictures for some suggestion of infinity. "Escape, Hope, Infinity, by whatever conventionalism sought, the device is the same in all, the instinct constant" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 7, 8).

213

Ruskin finds Leonardo's landscape unconvincing. "In realisation of detail he verges on the ornamental; in his rock outlines he has all the deficiencies and little of the feeling of the earlier men. The rocks are grotesque without being ideal, and extraordinary without being impressive." "The forms of rock in Leonardo's celebrated 'Vierge aux Rochers' are literally no better than those on a china plate" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 13; Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 157). A high authority on the Alpine region, Mr. Douglas Freshfield, has suggested that the originals of Leonardo's backgrounds are to be found among the mountains between Val Sassina and the Lago di Lecco: "The last spurs of the Alps are here singularly picturesque. The bold forms of the Corno di Canzo and Monte Baro break down to display the shining pools of the Laghi di Pusiano and d' Annone. Hither Leonardo may have come, and looking across the narrow lake or from beside some smaller pool or stream at the stiff upright rocks of the Grigna and the Resegone, have conceived the strange backgrounds with which we are all familiar" (Italian Alps, 1875, p. 126). Mr. Freshfield's suggestion is borne out by Leonardo's own topographical notes, since published. He had visited the district and specially remarks upon its fantastic rocks.

214

When in the Hamilton Collection, this picture was ascribed to Giorgione. Some critics strongly dispute the ascription (see, e. g., Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 87), others accept it (see, e. g., an article in the Times, July 26, 1882). Sir Edward Poynter says: "The qualities of colour and painting in this picture so closely resemble those of the famous 'Fête Champêtre' by Giorgione in the Louvre, that it is difficult not to believe that the two pictures are by the same hand, and that, if the Louvre picture is rightly named, the original attribution to Giorgione may be correct" (National Gallery, i. 24). Mr. Herbert Cook is of the same opinion: "The figures, with their compactly built and rounded limbs, are such as Giorgione loved to model, the sweep of draperies and the splendid line indicate a consummate master, the idyllic landscape is just such as we see in the Louvre picture and elsewhere, the glow and splendour of the whole reveal a master of tone and colouring" (Giorgione, p. 94). As an illustration of the uncertainty of criticism it may be interesting to append the observations on Sir E. Poynter's remarks made by a writer in the Daily Telegraph of Dec. 29, 1899: "In reality no two works belonging to more or less the same period of Venetian art could be more utterly different. The Hamilton Palace picture is a soulless and second-rate production, dating a good many years later than the Louvre idyll, wholly different from it in handling, and remarkable only for its beautiful golden tone. The Louvre 'Fête Champêtre' – a late example of the divine master – is one of the loveliest and most characteristic pieces produced in the early prime of Venetian painting. Should the 'Venus and Adonis' be set down to Giorgione, the misrepresentation in the National Gallery of a unique figure in art would be complete."

215

By Mr. Berenson to "Amico di Sandro."

216

"The figures are ill-proportioned and want expression and character. They are more probably by a scholar or imitator" (Layard's Kugler, vol. i. p. 289).

217

Critics of the modern school assert that the picture was not executed by Botticelli, even if it was designed by him; it bears, they say, "no trace of his style" (see, e. g., Richter's Lectures and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento). Ruskin was on the same side: "I hope you know Botticelli well enough," he wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray (February 14, 1873), "not to think you'll have to copy stuff like that arms-akimbo thing. By the way, what have they all got, like truncheons? They look like a lot of opera-directors." Dr. Uhlmann in his work on Botticelli ascribes the picture to Botticini; Vasari, he thinks, confused the two painters, – a theory for which there is no sort of proof. There is only one work of Botticini which has been identified with certainty. It is at Empoli, and was executed in 1490, or fifteen years at least before this picture. Vasari's account is precise, and is confirmed, as we have seen, by historical records. Very convincing internal proofs are necessary to overthrow this external evidence. Where are such proofs? The idea of the picture is entirely in accordance with what we know of Botticelli. "The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest his invention" (Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 64). The case in this sense is very well put by Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy of January 9, 1892. He points out among other things that the picture agrees with the general spirit of Botticelli's designs for the "Paradiso."

218

Some account of the poem is given in an appendix to vol. v. of Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

219

The traveller will find a convenient handbook to these frescoes in Mr. J. L. Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto.

220

It came from the Hamilton sale (1882), and was bought for the small price of £157:10s.

221

Owing to the similarity of initials IVO the picture was ascribed by its former owner to Isaac van Ostade, who, however, died in 1649.

222

Materials for such comparison – which is not the least interesting of the many lines of study offered by a collection of pictures – are provided in Mrs. Jameson's books, or may be formed still better by every student for himself by a collection of photographs. A capital series of articles by Mr. Grant Allen in the Pall Mall Magazine of 1895 traced, in a few of the most popular subjects, the process of "Evolution in Early Italian Art."

223

Visitors to Venice will remember a beautiful use of this arrangement on the southern side of the Rialto, the Dove forming the keystone of the arch.

224

A piece of paper of the last century, glued to the back of this panel, contains a memorandum in now faded ink, in the handwriting of the great-grandfather of Signor G. Molfini (from whom the picture was bought in Genoa in 1883), to the following effect: – "Antonello of Messina, a city of Sicily, a famous painter… And this is his portrait, painted by himself, as was to be seen by an inscription below it which I, in order to reduce it (i. e. the picture) to a better shape, sawed away." Some traces of further writing are now illegible.

225

Ford Madox Brown, who was not one to be impressed by any authority, has some very scathing remarks on this picture: "Bad in colour, in drawing, in grouping, and in expression, with the figure of Jesus falling on its nose, this work seems to shine solely by reason of the varnish with which it has recently been so polished up" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 135).

226

He enumerates them in an official return of his property: "Further, I have a monkey, moreover, a raven which can talk, and which I keep by me in order that he may teach from his cage a theological jackass also to speak. Item: an owl to frighten the witches, two peacocks, two dogs, a sparrow-hawk, and other birds of prey, six fowls, eighteen chickens, two moor-fowl, and many other birds, to name all of which would only cause confusion."

227

According to Nonius Marcellus: "By old Roman law, brides used to bring three asses (pennies), and to give one, which they held in the hand, to the bridegroom, as though to purchase him; to place another, which they held in the foot, on the hearth of the family Lares; and to put the third in their pocket and rattle it at the next cross-road."

228

See, however, for some deductions afterwards made from this estimate, ibid. vol. iv. pt. v. ch. iii. §§ 6, 7.

229

Elsewhere Ruskin makes some exception in favour of Ary Scheffer: "Though one of the heads of the Mud sentiment school, he does draw and feel very beautifully and deeply" (Letters on Art and Literature, p. 37).

230

It was placed in their chapel in the church of S. Lorenzo in that city. There it remained till 1764, when it was bought for the Duke of Marlborough, and a copy replaced the original in the chapel.

231

This picture and Van Dyck's "Charles the First" (1172) were bought in 1884 from the Duke of Marlborough for £87,500. Sir F. Burton, the Director of the National Gallery, had valued them at £115,500 and £31,500 severally. I remember once hearing Mr. Gladstone refer to this matter. His economic conscience seemed to give him some qualms on the score of the unprecedented price. But he took comfort in the fact that, large as was the price actually paid, the price asked by the owner, as also the valuation of the Director, was very much larger. "At any rate," he said with a smile, "I saved the taxpayers £45,000 on this Raphael, by not listening to the advice of the Director of the Gallery." The purchase had been pressed upon the Government by all sorts and conditions of men. The Royal Academy memorialised Mr. Gladstone, and pleaded especially for the Raphael – "a work produced in that happy period in which the reverent purity and the serene grace of the master's earliest work are already mellowing into the fuller dignity of his middle style." The Trustees of the National Gallery declared that the purchase would at once raise the Collection to a rank second to none, and superior to most, of the great Continental Galleries; whilst a memorial from members of Parliament of all parties, after referring to the Raphael as the finest in point of colouring that ever came from his hand, assured Mr. Gladstone that "their constituents and the whole nation will approve and applaud" a departure from "the hard line of severe economy." It appears from The Life and Correspondence of Mr. Childers (ii. 163), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, that the purchase was first suggested by Queen Victoria.

232

Sir Edward Poynter. The luminous quality of the picture conquered Mr. Ruskin. After one of his last visits to the National Gallery, he said to me: "The new Raphael is certainly lovely – quite the loveliest Raphael in the world. The 'San Sisto' is dark and brown beside it."

233

In this matter of the open sky also the "Ansidei Madonna" is curiously transitional. "Raphael," says Ruskin (ibid. § 10), "in his fall, betrayed the faith he had received from his father and his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del Cardellino, the chamber-wall of the Madonna della Sediola, and the brown wainscot of the Baldacchino." Here we have both – the Baldacchino and the open sky behind.

234

Mr. Monkhouse suggests alternative explanations. Who is the figure on the throne? "Is he meant for some intellectual Dives, learning too late that happiness exists not in luxury or knowledge? Is he the poet, musing in sadness and mental solitude on the mysteries of life, who cannot taste of its fruit or listen to its music, unconscious of the brute forces symbolised by the panther, and the vanity of human pride imaged by the peacock on the dead branch; or is he a philosopher imparting wisdom to the young? What matter, the picture charms like nature, because we cannot fathom it" (In the National Gallery, p. 234). In the case of Giorgione's frescoes at Venice, Vasari frankly "gave it up": "I, for my part, have never been able to understand what they mean, nor, with all the inquiries that I have made, could I ever find any one who did understand, or could explain them to me." But the theory that the subject in Renaissance pictures meant nothing – that details were treated from a purely pictorial point of view – is, as Dr. Richter has well observed, more convenient than correct. The clue to many of these unknown subjects is to be found in classical or Italian literature. Bellini's allegorical compositions have recently been thus interpreted. Titian's so-called "Sacred and Profane Love" has been identified by Herr Franz Wickhoff as an illustration of the story of Medea as told in the seventh book of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, and the same author has also found the key to several works ascribed to Giorgione.

235

Dr. Richter, who found these pictures in a Veronese palace, points out that the architecture in the background represents the old tower of the castle of Mantua (Art Journal, Feb. 1895). It has, however, been urged amongst other objections that the eagle on the banners belongs to neither of the two houses. Perhaps, therefore, the subject of the pictures is purely imaginary or borrowed from some romance of the time.

236

See note on No. 591.

237

One portrait, however, was found by Mr. Petrie, not fixed over the face of the mummy, but framed and glazed for hanging on the wall of a tomb. The frame, now in the British Museum, is very like what is called an "Oxford frame."

238

Two other members of the family are known as painters – Ambrosius, brother of the younger Hans; and Sigmund, brother of the elder. A portrait ascribed to the latter is in our Gallery, No. 722.

239

The picture is painted on ten boards joined vertically; and it is interesting to speculate how far the composition may have been directed by the necessity of avoiding any joint in the faces.

240

Cf. what Ruskin says of "the glorious severity" of Holbein's portraits (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. 1. ch. xiv. § 19).

241

The contrast between the picture as it was before being cleaned and as it is now is very great. The accessories have come out in astonishing clearness, and the crucifix in the left-hand corner has been unveiled. The dingy green of the curtain background has given place to a rich damask, and the gown of the younger man – which Wornum described as "brownish green" – is now seen to be not green at all. Mr. Dyer, to whose art this successful restoration was due, removed the obscuring dirt and varnish entirely by manual friction.

242

Several pages would be required to give a résumé of all the theories propounded, and of all the pros and cons in each case. An account of the principal theories was given in the fourth edition of this Handbook, and the story forms an entertaining chapter in the curiosities of criticism. The most elaborately sustained of the theories is that which identifies the "ambassadors" with the Counts Palatine Otto Henry and his brother Philip (see the monograph on the picture by W. F. Dickes).

243

The following is the text of the document: —

Remarques sur le suject d'un tableau excellent des Srs. d'Inteville Polizy, et de George de Selve. [Evesque de Lavour (sic) contenant leurs emplois, et tems de leur deceds].

En ce tableau est representé au naturel Messire Jean de D Intevile chevalier sieur de Polizy près de Bar-sur-seyne Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy François premier ez années 1532 & 1533 & de puis Gouverneur de Monsieur Charles de France second filz diceluy Roy, le quel Charles mourut a forest monstier en l'an 1545, & le dict sr. de D Intevile en l'an 1555, sepulturé en l'eglise du dict Polizy. Est aussi representé audict tableau Messire George de Selve Evesque de Lavaur personnage de grandes lettres & fort vertueux, & qui fut Ambassadeur pres de L Empereur Charles cinquiesme, le diet Evesque Filz de Messire Jean de Selve premier president au parlement de Paris, iceluy sr. Evesque decedé en l'an 1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533 passé en Angleterre par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict sieur de D Intevile son intime amy & de toute sa famile, & eux deux ayantz rencontrez en Angleterre un excellent peinctre holandois, l'employèrent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté soigneusement conservé au mesme lieu de Polizy iusques en l'an 1653.

244

The words in the choir-book are thus identified by Mr. Eastlake (see a very interesting letter to the Times, 17th August 1891).

Kom Heiliger Geyst herzegott erfüll mit deiner gnaden und (?) deiner gleubge hertz mut un sin dein brustig lib entzüd in ihn.

O herz durch deines lichtes glast (?) züdem glaube versamlet hast das volck aller welt zunge …(?) dir herzu lob gesungen … gesungen …

On the left-hand page: —

Mensch wiltu (?) leben seliguch und bei Gott blibene