A Wanderer in Venice Part 22

The task comprises the scenes in the life of the Virgin, in the lower hall; the scenes in the life of Christ, on the walls of the upper hall; the scenes from the Old Testament, on the ceiling of the upper hall; and the last scenes in the life of Christ, in the Refectory. In short, the Scuola di S. Rocco is Tintoretto's Sistine Chapel.

We enter to an "Annunciation"; and if we had not perceived before, we at once perceive here, in this building, Tintoretto's innovating gift of realism. He brought dailiness into art. Tremendous as was his method, he never forgot the little things. His domestic details leaven the whole.

This "Annunciation" is the most dramatic version that exists. The Virgin has been sitting quietly sewing in her little room, poorly enough furnished, with a broken chair by the bed, when suddenly this celestial irruption--this urgent flying angel attended by a horde of cherubim or cupids and heralded by the Holy Spirit. At the first glance you think that the angel has burst through the wall, but that is not so. But as it is, even without that violence, how utterly different from the demure treatment of the Tuscans! To think of Fra Angelico and Tintoretto together is like placing a violet beside a tiger lily.

A little touch in the picture should be noticed: a carpenter at work outside. Very characteristic of Tintoretto.

Next--but here let me remind or inform the reader that the Venetian Index at the end of the later editions of _The Stones of Venice_ contains an a.n.a.lysis of these works, by Ruskin, which is as characteristic of that writer as the pictures are of their artist. In particular is Ruskin delighted by "The Annunciation," by "The Murder of the Innocents," and, upstairs, by the ceiling paintings and the Refectory series.

Next is "The Adoration of the Magi," with all the ingredients that one can ask, except possibly any spiritual rapture; and then the flight into a country less like the Egypt to which the little family were bound, or the Palestine from which they were driven, than one can imagine, but a dashing work. Then "The Slaughter of the Innocents," a confused scene of fine and daring drawing, in which, owing to gloom and grime, no innocents can be discerned. Then a slender nocturnal pastoral which is even more difficult to see, representing Mary Magdalen in a rocky landscape, and opposite it a similar work representing S. Mary of Egypt, which one knows to be austere and beautiful but again cannot see.

Since the story of S. Mary of Egypt is little known, I may perhaps be permitted to tell it here. This Mary, before her conversion, lived in Alexandria at the end of the fourth century and was famous for her licentiousness. Then one day, by a caprice, joining a company of pilgrims to Jerusalem, she embraced Christianity, and in answer to her prayers for peace of mind was bidden by a supernatural voice to pa.s.s beyond Jordan, where rest and comfort were to be found. There, in the desert, she roamed for forty-seven years, when she was found, naked and grey, by a holy man named Zosimus who was travelling in search of a hermit more pious than himself with whom he might have profitable converse. Zosimus, having given her his mantle for covering, left her, but he returned in two years, bringing with him the Sacrament and some food.

When they caught sight of each other, Mary was on the other side of the Jordan, but she at once walked to him calmly over the water, and after receiving the Sacrament returned in the same manner; while Zosimus hastened to Jerusalem with the wonderful story.

The next year Zosimus again went in search of her, but found only her corpse, which, with the a.s.sistance of a lion, he buried. She was subsequently canonized.

The other two and hardly distinguishable paintings are "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple" and "The a.s.sumption of the Virgin."

Now we ascend the staircase, on which is a beautiful "Annunciation" by t.i.tian, strangely unlike Tintoretto's version below. Here the Virgin kneels before her desk, expectant, and the angel sails quietly in with a lily. The picture is less dramatic and more sympathetic; but personally I should never go to Venice for an "Annunciation" at all. Here also is Tintoretto's "Visitation," but it is not easily seen.

The upper hall is magnificent, but before we examine it let us proceed with the Tintorettos. In "The Adoration of the Shepherds," in the far left-hand corner as one enters, there is an excellent example of the painter's homeliness. It is really two pictures, the Holy Family being on an upper floor, or rather shelf, of the manger and making the prettiest of groups, while below, among the animals, are the shepherds, real peasants, looking up in worship and rapture. This is one of the most attractive of the series, not only as a painting but as a Biblical ill.u.s.tration.

In the corresponding corner at the other end of this wall is another of the many "Last Suppers" which Tintoretto devised. It does not compare in brilliance with that in S. Giorgio Maggiore, but it must greatly have interested the painter as a composition, and nothing could be more unlike the formality of the Leonardo da Vinci convention, with the table set square to the spectators, than this curious disordered scramble in which several of the disciples have no chairs at all. The att.i.tudes are, however, convincing, Christ is a gracious figure, and the whole scene is very memorable and real.

The Tintorettos on the walls of the upper hall I find less interesting than those on the ceiling, which, however, present the usual physical difficulties to the student. How Ruskin with his petulant impatience brought himself to a.n.a.lyse so minutely works the examination of which leads to such bodily discomfort, I cannot imagine. But he did so, and his pages should be consulted. He is particularly interesting on "The Plague of Serpents." My own favourite is that of Moses striking the rock, from which, it is said, an early critic fled for his life for fear of the torrent. The manna scene may be compared with another and more vivid version of the same incident in S. Giorgio Maggiore.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRUCIFIXION (CENTRAL DETAIL) FROM THE PAINTING BY TINTORETTO _In the Scuola di S. Rocco_]

The scenes from the Life of Christ around the walls culminate in the wonderful "Crucifixion," in the Refectory leading from this room. This sublime work, which was painted in 1565, when the artist was forty-seven, he considered his masterpiece. It is the greatest single work in Venice, and all Tintoretto is in it, except the sensuous colourist of the "Origin of the Milky Way": all his power, all his thought, all his drama. One should make this room a constant retreat.

The more one studies the picture the more real is the scene and the more amazing the achievement. I do not say that one is ever moved as one can be in the presence of great simplicity; one is aware in all Tintoretto's work of a hint of the self-conscious entrepreneur; but never, one feels, was the great man so single-minded as here; never was his desire to impress so deep and genuine. In the ma.s.s the picture is overpowering; in detail, to which one comes later, its interest is inexhaustible. As an example of the painter's minute thought, one writer has pointed out that the donkey in the background is eating withered palm leaves--a touch of ironical genius, if you like. Ruskin calls this work the most exquisite instance of the "imaginative penetrative." I reproduce a detail showing the soldiers with the ropes and the group of women at the foot of the cross.

The same room has Tintoretto's n.o.ble picture of Christ before Pilate and the fine tragic composition "The Road to Calvary," and on the ceiling is the S. Rocco of which I have already spoken--the germ from which sprang the whole wonderful series.

The story of this, the most Venetian of the Venetian painters and the truest to his native city (for all his life was spent here), may more fittingly be told in this place, near his masterpiece and his portrait (which is just by the door), than elsewhere. He was born in 1518, in the ninth year of our Henry VIII's reign, the son of a dyer, or tintore, named Battista Robusti, and since the young Jacopo Robusti helped his father in his trade he was called the little dyer, or il tintoretto. His father was well to do, and the boy had enough leisure to enable him to copy and to frequent the arcades of S. Mark's Square, under which such artists as were too poor to afford studios were allowed to work.

The greatest name in Venetian art at that time, and indeed still, was that of t.i.tian, and Tintoretto was naturally anxious to become his pupil. t.i.tian was by many years Tintoretto's senior when, at the age of seventeen, the little dyer obtained leave to study under him. The story has it that so masterly were Tintoretto's early drawings that t.i.tian, fearing rivalry, refused to teach him any longer. Whether this be true or not, and one dislikes to think of t.i.tian in this way, Tintoretto left the studio and was thrown upon his own resources and ambition.

Fortunately he did not need money: he was able even to form a collection of casts from the antique and also from Michael Angelo, the boy's other idol, who when Tintoretto was seventeen was sixty-one. Thus supplied, Tintoretto practised drawing and painting, day and night, his motto being "t.i.tian's colour and Michael Angelo's form"; and he expressed himself as willing to paint anything anywhere, inside a house or outside, and if necessary for nothing, rather than be idle. Practice was what he believed in: practice and study; and he never tired. All painting worth anything, he held, must be based on sound drawing. "You can buy colours on the Rialto," he would remark, "but drawing can come only by labour." Some say that he was stung by a sarcasm of his Tuscan hero that the Venetians could not draw; be that as it may, he made accurate drawing his corner-stone; and so thorough was he in his study of chiaroscuro that he devised little toy houses in which to manufacture effects of light and shade. One of his first pictures to attract attention was a portrait of himself and his brother illuminated by a lamp.

So pa.s.sed, in miscellaneous work, even to painting furniture, at least ten years, towards the close of which he painted for the Madonna dell'Orto his earliest important work, "The Last Judgment," which though derived from Michael Angelo yet indicates much personal force. It was in 1548, when he was thirty, that Tintoretto's real chance came, for he was then invited to contribute to the decoration of the Scuola of S. Marco, and for it he produced one of his greatest works, "The Miracle of S.

Mark," now in the Accademia. The novelty of its vivid force and drama, together with its power and a.s.surance, although, as I have said, at first disconcerting to the unprepared critics, soon made an impression; spectators were carried off their feet; and Tintoretto's fame was a.s.sured. See opposite page 170.

I have not counted the Venetian churches with examples of Tintoretto's genius in them (it would be simpler to count those that have none); but they are many and his industry was enormous. One likes to think of his studio being visited continually by church patrons and prelates anxious to see how their particular commission was getting on.

Tintoretto married in 1558, two years after Shakespeare's birth, his wife being something of an heiress, and in 1562 his eldest son, Domenico, who also became an artist, was born. We have seen how in 1560 Tintoretto competed for the S. Rocco decorations; in 1565 he painted "The Crucifixion"; and he was working on the walls of the Scuola until 1588. In the meantime he worked also for the Doges' Palace, his first picture, that of the Battle of Lepanto, being destroyed with many others in the fire of 1576, first obtaining him as a reward a sinecure post in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, that central office of German merchants and brokers on the facade of which Giorgione and t.i.tian painted their famous (now obliterated) frescoes. Small posts here with no obligations were given to public servants, much as we give Civil List pensions.

Tintoretto's life was very methodical, and was divided strictly between painting and domestic affairs, with few outside diversions. He had settled down in the house which now bears his name and a tablet, close to the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. His children were eight in number, among whom his favourite was Marietta, his eldest daughter. He and she were in fact inseparable, Marietta even donning boy's attire in order to be with him at his work on occasions when as a girl it would have been difficult. Perhaps it is she who so often appears in his pictures as a beautiful sympathetic human girl among so much that is somewhat frigidly Biblical and detached. Among his closer friends were some of the best Venetian intellects, and, among the artists, Andrea Schiavone, who hovers like a ghost about so many painters and their work, Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, Jacopo da Ponte, or Ba.s.sano, and Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor. He had musician friends, too; for Tintoretto, like Giorgione before him, was devoted to music, and himself played many instruments. He was a man of simple tastes and a quiet and somewhat dry humour; liked home best; chaffed his wife, who was a bit of a manager and had to check his indiscriminate generosity by limiting him to one coin a day; and, there is no doubt whatever, studied his Bible with minuteness. His collected works make the most copious ill.u.s.trated edition of scripture that exists.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COLLEONI STATUE AND S.S. GIOVANNI E PAOLO]

Certain of Tintoretto's sayings prove his humour to have had a caustic turn. Being once much hara.s.sed by a crowd of spectators, including men of civic eminence, he was asked why he painted so quickly when Bellini and t.i.tian had been so deliberate. "They had not so many onlookers to drive them to distraction," he replied. Of t.i.tian, in spite of his admiration for his colour, he was always a little jealous and could not bear to hear him much praised; and colour without drawing eternally vexed him. His own colour is always subservient. The saying of his which one remembers best bears upon the difficulties that beset the conscientious artist: "The farther you go in, the deeper is the sea."

Late in life Tintoretto spent much time with the brothers of S. Rocco.

In 1594, at the age of seventy-six, he died, after a short illness. All Venice attended his funeral.

He was one of the greatest of painters, and, like Michael Angelo, he did nothing little. All was on the grand scale. He had not Michael Angelo's towering superiority, but he too was a giant. His chief lack was tenderness. There is something a little remote, a little unsympathetic, in all his work: one admires and wonders, and awaits in vain the softening moment. To me he is as much a dramatist of the Bible as a painter of it.

One is rarely satisfied with the whole of a Tintoretto; but a part of most of his works is superb. Of all his pictures in Venice my favourite secular one is the "Bacchus and Ariadne" in the Doges' Palace, which has in it a loveliness not excelled in any painting that I know. Excluding "The Crucifixion" I should name "The Marriage in Cana" at the Salute as his most ingratiating Biblical scene. See opposite pages 48 and 96.

The official programme of the Scuola pictures, printed on screens in various languages, badly needs an English revisor. Here are two t.i.tles: "Moise who makes the water spring"; "The three children in the oven of Babylony." It also states "worthy of attention are as well the woodcarvings round the wall sides by an anonymous." To these we come later. Let me say first that everything about the upper hall, which you will note has no pillars, is splendid and thorough--proportions, ceiling, walls, carvings, floor.

The carvings on each side of the high altar (not those "by an anonymous"

but others) tell very admirably the life of the patron saint of the school whose "S.R.," n.o.bly devised in bra.s.s, will be found so often both here and in the church across the way. S. Rocco, or Saint Rocke, as Caxton calls him, was born at Montpelier in France of n.o.ble parentage.

His father was lord of Montpelier. The child, who came in answer to prayer, bore at birth on his left shoulder a cross and was even as a babe so holy that when his mother fasted he fasted too, on two days in the week deriving nourishment from her once only, and being all the gladder, sweeter, and merrier for this denial. The lord of Montpelier when dying impressed upon his exemplary son four duties: namely, to continue to be vigilant in doing good, to be kind to the poor, to distribute all the family wealth in alms, and to haunt and frequent the hospitals.

Both his parents being dead, Rocco travelled to Italy. At Acquapendente he healed many persons of the pestilence, and also at Cesena and at Rome, including a cardinal, whom he rendered immune to plague for ever more by drawing a cross on his forehead. The cardinal took him to see the pope, in whose presence Rocco's own forehead shone with a supernatural light which greatly impressed the pontiff. After much further wandering and healing, Rocco himself took the disease under both his arms and was so racked with pain that he kept the other patients in the hospital awake. This distressing him, he crept away where his groans were out of hearing, and there he lay till the populace, finding him, and fearing infection, drove him from the city. At Piacenza, where he took refuge, a spring of fair water, which is there to this day, gushed out of the earth for his liquid refreshment and as mark of heaven's approval; while the hound of a neighbouring sportsman brought him bread from the lord Golard's table: hence the presence of a dog in all representations of the saint. In the church of S. Rocco across the way Tintoretto has a picture of this scene in which we discern the dog to have been a liver-and-white spaniel.

Golard, discovering the dog's fidelity to Rocco, himself pa.s.sed into the saint's service and was so thoroughly converted by him that he became a humble mendicant in the Piacenza streets. Rocco meanwhile continued to heal, although he could not heal himself, and he even cured the wild animals of their complaints, as Tintoretto also shows us. Being at last healed by heaven, he travelled to Lombardy, where he was taken as a spy and imprisoned for five years, and in prison he died, after being revealed as a saint to his gaoler. His dying prayer was that all Christians who prayed to him in the name of Jesus might be delivered from pestilence. Shortly after Rocco's death an angel descended to earth with a table written in letters of gold stating that this wish had been granted. In the carvings in the chancel, the bronzes on the gate and in Tintoretto's pictures in the neighbouring church, much of this story may be traced.

The most noteworthy carvings round the room represent types and attributes. Here is the musician, the conspirator (a very Guy Fawkes, with dark lantern and all), the scholar, and so forth, all done with humorous detail by one Pianta. When he came to the artist he had a little quiet fun with the master himself, this figure being a caricature of no less a performer than the great Tintoretto.

The little room leading from the upper hall is that rare thing in Venice, a council chamber which presents a tight fit for the council.

Just inside is a wax model of the head of one of the four Doges named Alvise Mocenigo, I know not which. Upstairs is a Treasury filled with valuable ecclesiastical vessels, missals and vestments, and two fine religious pictures from the masterly worldly hand of Tiepolo. Among the sacred objects enshrined in gold and silver reliquaries are a piece of the jawbone of S. Barbara, a piece of the cranium of S. Martin, a tiny portion of the veil of the Madonna, and a tooth of S. Apollonius held in triumph in a pair of forceps by a little golden cherub. And now, descending again, let us look once more at the great picture of Him whose Life and Crucifixion put into motion all this curious ecclesiastical machinery--so strangely far from the original idea.

The church of S. Rocco is opposite, and one must enter it for Tintoretto's scenes in the life of the saint, and for a possible Giorgione over the altar to the right of the choir in a beautiful old frame. The subject is Christ carrying the cross, with a few urging Him on. The theory that Giorgione painted this picture is gaining ground, and we know that only about a century after Giorgione's death Van Dyck, when sketching in Venice, made some notes of the work under the impression that it was the divine Castel Francan's. The light is poor and the picture is in a bad state, but one is conscious of being in the presence of a work of very delicate beauty and a profound soft richness.

The picture, Vasari says, once worked miracles, and years ago it brought in, in votive money, great sums. One grateful admirer has set up a version of it in marble, on the left wall of the choir. Standing before this Giorgione, as before the Tintorettos here and over the way, one again wishes, as so often in Venice, that some American millionaire, in love with this lovely city and in doubt as to how to apply his superfluity of cash, would offer to clean the pictures in the churches.

What glorious hues would then come to light!

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FRARI AND t.i.tIAN

A n.o.ble church--The tomb of t.i.tian--A painter-prince--A lost garden--Pomp and colour--A ceaseless learner--Canova--Bellini's altar-piece--The Pesaro Madonna--The Frari cat--Tombs vulgar and otherwise--Francesco Foscari--Niccol Tron's beard.

From S. Rocco to the Frari is but a step, and plenty of a.s.sistance in taking that step will be offered you by small boys.

Outside, the Frari--whose full t.i.tle is Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari--is worth more attention than it wins. At the first glance it is a barn built of millions of bricks; but if you give it time it grows into a most beautiful Gothic church with lovely details, such as the corbelling under the eaves, the borders of the circular windows, and still more delightful borders of the long windows, and so forth; while its campanile is magnificent. In size alone the Frari is worthy of all respect, and its age is above five centuries. It shares with SS.

Giovanni e Paolo the duty of providing Venice with a Westminster Abbey, for between them they preserve most of the ill.u.s.trious dead.

Within, it is a gay light church with fine sombre choir stalls. Next to S. Stefano, it is the most cheerful church in Venice, and one should often be there. Nothing is easier than to frequent it, for it is close to the S. Toma steamboat station, and every visit will discover a new charm.