Six Centuries of Painting Part 3

Vasari's story of the Prior's head serving for that of Judas is related with less colour, but probably more truth, in the Discourses of G. B.

Giraldi, who says that when Leonardo had finished the painting with the exception of the head of Judas, the friars complained to the Duke that he had left it in this state for more than a year. Leonardo replied that for more than a year he had gone every morning and evening into the Borghetto, where all the worst sort of people lived, yet he could never find a head sufficiently evil to serve for the likeness of Judas: but he added, "If perchance I shall not find one, I will put there the head of this Father Prior who is now so troublesome to me, which will become him mightily."

In 1500 Leonardo was back again in Florence, and his next important work was the designing, though probably not the actual painting, of the beautiful picture in the Louvre, _The Virgin and Child with S. Anne_, the commission for which had been given to Filippino Lippi, but resigned by him on Leonardo's return. In 1501 Isabella d'Este wrote to know whether Leonardo was still in Florence, and what he was doing, as she wished him to paint a picture for her in the palace at Mantua, and in the reply of the Vicar-General of the Carmelites we have a valuable account of the artist and his work. "As far as I can gather," he writes, "the life of Leonardo is extremely variable and undetermined. Since his arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon. It represents a Christ as a little child of about a year old, reaching forward out of his mother's arms towards a lamb. The mother, half rising from the lap of S. Anne, catches at the child as though to take it away from the lamb, the animal of sacrifice signifying the Pa.s.sion. S. Anne, also rising a little from her seat, seems to wish to restrain her daughter from separating the child from the lamb; which perhaps is intended to signify the Church, that would not wish that the Pa.s.sion of Christ should be hindered. These figures are as large as life, but they are all contained in a small cartoon, since all of them sit or are bent; the figure of the Virgin is somewhat in front of the other, turned towards the left. This sketch is not yet finished. He has not executed any other work, except that his two a.s.sistants paint portraits and he, at times, lends a hand to one or another of them. He gives profound study to geometry, and grows most impatient of painting."

The history of this cartoon--as indeed of the Louvre picture--is somewhat obscure, but it is certain that the beautiful cartoon of the same subject in the possession of the Royal Academy is not the one above described.

Lastly, there is the famous--or, may we say, now more famous than ever--portrait of _Mona Lisa_. "Whoever wishes to know how far art can imitate nature," Vasari writes, "may do so in this head, wherein every detail that could be depicted by the brush has been faithfully reproduced. The eyes have the l.u.s.trous brightness and watery sheen that is seen in life, and around them are all those rosy and pearly tints which, like the eyelashes too, can only be rendered by means of the deepest subtlety; the eyebrows also are painted with the closest exact.i.tude, where fuller and where more thinly set, in a manner that could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful and delicately roseate nostrils, seems to be alive. The mouth, wonderful in its outline, shows the lips perfectly uniting the rose tints of their colour with that of the face, and the carnation of the cheek appears rather to be flesh and blood than only painted. Looking at the pit of the throat one can hardly believe that one cannot see the beating of the pulse, and in truth it may be said that the whole work is painted in a manner well calculated to make the boldest master tremble.

"Mona Lisa was exceedingly beautiful, and while Leonardo was painting her portrait he kept someone constantly near her to sing or play, to jest or otherwise amuse her, so that she might continue cheerful, and keep away the melancholy that painters are apt to give to their portraits. In this picture there is a smile so pleasing that the sight of it is a thing that appears more divine than human, and it has ever been considered a marvel that it is not actually alive."

It is worth observing that while these rapturous expressions of wonder at the life-like qualities of the portrait may seem somewhat tame and childish in comparison with the appreciation accorded to Leonardo's work in these times--notably that of Walter Pater in this case--they are in reality at the root of all criticism. If Vasari, as I have already pointed out, pitches upon this quality of life-likeness and direct imitation of nature for his particular admiration, it is only because the first and foremost object of the earlier painters was in fact to represent the life; and though in the rarefied atmosphere of modern talk about art these nave criticisms may seem out of date, it is significant that between Vasari and ourselves there is little, if any, difference of opinion as to which masters were the great ones, and which were not.

"Truly divine" is a phrase in which he sums up the impressions created in his mind by the less material qualities of some of the greatest, but before even the greatest could create such an impression they must have learnt the rudiments of the art in the school of nature.

VI

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

IN the opening years of the sixteenth century the art of painting had attained such a pitch of excellence that unless carried onward by a supreme genius it could hardly hope to escape from the common lot of all things in nature, and begin to decline. After Botticelli and Leonardo, the works of Andrea del Sarto, "the perfect painter" as he has been called, fall rather flat; and no less a prodigy than Michelangelo was capable of excelling his marvellous predecessors, or than Raphael of rivalling them.

Vasari prefaces his life to ANDREA DEL SARTO (1486-1531) with something more definite than his usual rhetorical flourishes. "At length we have come," he says, "after having written the lives of many artists distinguished for colour, for design, or for invention, to that of the truly excellent Andrea del Sarto, in whom art and nature combined to show all that may be done in painting when design, colouring, and invention unite in one and the same person. Had he possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would beyond all doubt have been without an equal. But there was in his nature a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of strength, which prevented those evidences of ardour and animation which are proper to the highest characters from ever appearing in him which, could they have been added to his natural advantages, would have made him truly a divine painter, so that his works are wanting in that grandeur, richness, and force which are so conspicuous in those of many other masters.

"His figures are well drawn, and entirely free from errors, and perfect in all their proportions, and for the most part are simple and chaste.

His airs of heads are natural and graceful in women and children, while both in youth and old men they are full of life and animation. His draperies are marvellously beautiful. His nudes are admirably executed, simple in drawing, exquisite in colouring--nay, they are truly divine."

And yet? Well, let us turn to Michelangelo.

"While the best and most industrious artists," says Vasari, "were labouring by the light of Giotto and his followers to give the world examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they were struggling to attain that high comprehension which many call intelligence, and were universally toiling, but for the most part in vain, the Ruler of Heaven was pleased to turn the eyes of his clemency towards earth, and perceiving the fruitlessness of so many labours, the ardent studies pursued without any result, and the presumptuous self-sufficiency of men which is farther from truth than is darkness from light, he resolved, by way of delivering us from such great errors, to send to the world a spirit endowed with universality of power in each art, and in every profession, one capable of showing by himself alone what is the perfection of art in the sketch, the outline, the shadows, or the lights; one who could give relief to painting and with an upright judgment could operate as perfectly in sculpture; nay, who was so highly accomplished in architecture also, that he was able to render our habitations secure and commodious, healthy and cheerful, well-proportioned, and enriched with the varied ornaments of art."

A more prosaic pa.s.sage follows presently, occasioned by the innuendoes of Condivi as to Vasari's intimacy with Michelangelo and his knowledge of the facts of his life at first hand. Vasari meets this accusation by quoting the following doc.u.ment relating to the apprenticeship of Michelangelo to Domenico Ghirlandaio when fourteen years old. "1488. I acknowledge and record this first day of April that I, Lodovico di Buonarroti, have engaged Michelangelo my son to Domenico and David di Tommaso di Currado for the three years next to come, under the following conditions: That the said Michelangelo shall remain with the above named all the said time, to the end that they may teach him to paint and to exercise their vocation, and that the above named shall have full command over him paying him in the course of these three years twenty-four florins as wages...."

Besides this teaching in his earliest youth, it is considered probable that in 1494, when he visited Bologna, he came under influences which resulted in the execution at about that time of the unfinished _Entombment_ and the _Holy Family_, which are two of our greatest treasures in the National Gallery. As he took to sculpture, however, before he was out of Ghirlandaio's hands, there are few traces of any activity in painting until 1506, when he was engaged on the designs for the great battle-piece for the Council Hall at Florence. The one easel picture of which Vasari makes any mention, the _tondo_ in the Uffizi, is the only one besides those already noted which is known to exist. "The Florentine citizen, Angelo Doni," Vasari says, "desired to have some work from his hand as he was his friend; wherefore Michelangelo began a circular painting of Our Lady for him. She is kneeling, and presents the Divine Child to Joseph. Here the artist has finely expressed the delight with which the Mother regards the beauty of her Son, as is clearly manifest in the turn of her head and fixedness of her gaze; equally evident is her wish that this contentment shall be shared by that pious old man who receives the babe with infinite tenderness and reverence.

Nor was this enough for Michelangelo, since the better to display his art he has grouped several undraped figures in the background, some upright, some half rec.u.mbent, and others seated. The whole work is executed with so much care and finish that of all his pictures, which indeed are but few, this is considered the best."

After relating the story of the artist's quarrel with his friend over the price of this masterpiece (for which he at first only asked sixty ducats), Vasari goes on to describe the now lost cartoons for the great fresco in the Council Hall at Florence, in substance as follows:--

"When Leonardo was painting in the great hall of the Council, Piero Soderini, who was then Gonfaloniere, moved by the extraordinary ability which he perceived in Michelangelo [he calls him in a letter a young man who stands above all his calling in Italy; nay, in all the world], caused him to be entrusted with a portion of the work, and our artist began a very large cartoon representing the Battle of Pisa. It represented a vast number of nude figures bathing in the Arno, as men do on hot days, when suddenly the enemy is heard to be attacking the camp.

The soldiers spring forth in haste to arm themselves. One is an elderly man, who to shelter himself from the heat has wreathed a garland of ivy round his head, and, seated on the ground, is labouring to draw on his hose, hindered by his limbs being wet. Hearing the sound of the drums and the cries of the soldiers he struggles violently to get on one of his stockings; the action of the muscles and distortion of the mouth evince the zeal of his efforts. Drummers and others hasten to the camp with their clothes in their arms, all in the most singular att.i.tudes; some standing, others kneeling or stooping; some falling, others springing high into the air and exhibiting the most difficult foreshortenings.... The artists were amazed as they realised that the master had in this cartoon laid open to them the very highest resources of art; nay, there are some who still declare that they have never seen anything to equal it, either from his hand or any other, and they do not believe that genius will ever more attain to such perfection. Nor is this an exaggeration, for all who have designed from it and copied it--as it was the habit for both natives and strangers to do--have become excellent in art, amongst whom were Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Pontormo, and Piero del Vaga."

In 1508 Michelangelo began to prepare the cartoons for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. s.p.a.ce forbids me to attempt any description of these, but the story of their completion as related by Vasari can hardly be omitted. "When half of them were nearly finished," he says, "Pope Julius, who had gone more than once to see the work--mounting the ladders with the artist's help--insisted on having them opened to public view without waiting till the last touches were given, and the chapel was no sooner open than all Rome hastened thither, the Pope being first, even before the dust caused by removing the scaffold had subsided. Then it was that Raphael, who was very prompt in imitation, changed his manner, and to give proof of his ability immediately executed the frescoes with the Prophets and Sibyls in the church of the Pace.

Bramante (the architect) also laboured to convince the Pope that he would do well to entrust the second half to Raphael.... But Julius, who justly valued the ability of Michelangelo, commanded that he should continue the work, judging from what he saw of the first half that he would be able to improve the second. Michelangelo accordingly finished the whole in twenty months, without help. It is true that he often complained that he was prevented from giving it the finish he would have liked owing to the Pope's impatience, and his constant inquiries as to when it would be finished, and on one occasion he answered, "It will be finished when I shall have done all that I believe necessary to satisfy art." "And we command," replied Julius, "that you satisfy our wish to have it done quickly," adding finally that if it were not at once completed he would have Michelangelo thrown headlong from the scaffolding. Hearing this, the artist, without taking time to add what was wanting, took down the remainder of the scaffolding, to the great satisfaction of the whole city, on All Saints' Day, when the Pope went into his chapel to sing Ma.s.s."

Michelangelo had much wished to retouch some portions of the work _a secco_, as had been done by the older masters who had painted the walls; and to add a little ultramarine to some of the draperies, and gild other parts, so as to give a richer and more striking effect. The Pope, too, would now have liked these additions to be made, but as Michelangelo thought it would take too long to re-erect the scaffolding, the pictures remained as they were. The Pope would sometimes say to him, "Let the chapel be enriched with gold and bright colours; it looks poor." To which Michelangelo would reply, "Holy Father, the men of those days did not adorn themselves with gold; those who are painted here less than any; for they were none too rich. Besides, they were holy men, and must have despised riches and ornaments."

VII

RAFFAELLO DI SANTI

The character and the influence of RAPHAEL are well expressed in the following sentences with which Vasari concludes his biography:--"O happy and blessed spirit! every one speaks with interest of thee; celebrates thy deeds; admires thee in thy works! Well might Painting die when this n.o.ble artist ceased to live; for when his eyes were closed she remained in darkness. For us who survive him it remains to imitate the excellent method which he has left for our guidance; and as his great qualities deserve, and our duty bids us, to cherish his memory in our hearts, and keep it alive in our discourse by speaking of him with the high respect which is his due. For through him we have the art in all its extent carried to a perfection which could hardly have been looked for; and in this universality let no human being ever hope to surpa.s.s him. And, beside this benefit which he conferred on Art as her true friend, he neglected not to show us how every man should conduct himself in all the relations of life. Among his rare gifts there is one which especially excites my wonder; I mean, that Heaven should have granted him to infuse a spirit among those who lived around him so contrary to that which is prevalent among professional men. The painters--I do not allude to the humble-minded only, but to those of an ambitious turn, and many of this sort there are--the painters who worked in company with Raphael lived in perfect harmony, as if all bad feelings were extinguished in his presence, and every base, unworthy thought had pa.s.sed from their minds.

This was because the artists were at once subdued by his obliging manners and by his surpa.s.sing merit, but more than all by the spell of his natural character, which was so full of affectionate kindness, that not only men, but even the very brutes, respected him. He always had a great number of artists employed for him, helping them and teaching them with the kindness of a father to his children, rather than as a master directing his scholars. For which reason it was observed he never went to court without being accompanied from his very door by perhaps fifty painters who took pleasure in thus attending him to do him honour. In short, he lived more as a sovereign than as a painter. And thus, O Art of Painting! thou too, then, could account thyself most happy, since an artist was thine, who, by his skill and by his moral excellence exalted thee to the highest heaven!"

Raphael was the son of Giovanni Sanzio, or di Santi, of Urbino. He received his first education as an artist from his father, whom, however, he lost in his eleventh year. As early as 1495 probably, he entered the school of Pietro Perugino, at Perugia, where he remained till about his twentieth year.

The "Umbrian School," in which Raphael received his first education, and in which he is accordingly placed, is distinguished from the Florentine, of which it may be said to have been an offshoot, by several well-defined characteristics. Chief of these are, first, the more sentimental expression of religious feeling, and second, the greater attention paid to distance as compared with the princ.i.p.al figures; both of which are explainable on the ground of local circ.u.mstances. They reflect the difference between the bustling intellectual activity of Florence and the dreamy existence but broader horizon of the dwellers in the upper valley of the Tiber. In the beautiful _Nativity_ of PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA (No. 908 in the National Gallery) we see something akin to the Florentine pictures, and yet something more besides. Piero shared with Paolo Uccello the eager desire to discover the secrets of perspective; but in addition he seems to have been influenced by the study of nature herself, in the open air, as Uccello never was. His pupil, LUCA SIGNORELLI (1441-1523), was more formal and less naturalistic, as may be seen by a comparison between the _Circ.u.mcision_ (No. 1128 in the National Gallery) and Piero's _Baptism of Christ_ on the opposite wall. PIETRO PERUGINO (1446-1523)--his real name was Vannucci--was influenced both by Signorelli and by Verrocchio. In the studio of the latter he had probably worked with Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi, so that in estimating the influences which went to form the art of Raphael we need not insist too strongly on the distinction between "Umbrian" and "Florentine."

Raphael's first independent works (about 1500) are entirely in Perugino's style. They bear the general stamp of the Umbrian School, but in its highest beauty. His youthful efforts are essentially youthful, and seem to contain the earnest of a high development. Two are in the Berlin Museum. In the one (No. 141) called the _Madonna Solly_, the Madonna reads in a book; the Child on her lap holds a goldfinch. The other (No. 145), with heads of S. Francis and S. Jerome, is better.

Similar to it, but much more finished and developed, is a small round picture, the _Madonna Casa Connestabile_, now at St. Petersburg.

A more important picture of this time is the _Coronation of the Virgin_, painted for the church of S. Francesco at Perugia in 1503, but now in the Vatican. In the upper part, Christ and the Madonna are throned on clouds and surrounded by angels with musical instruments; underneath, the disciples stand around the empty tomb. In this lower part of the picture there is a very evident attempt to give the figures more life, motion, and enthusiastic expression than was before attempted in the school.

After this, Raphael appears to have quitted the school of Perugino, and to have commenced an independent career: he executed at this time some pictures in the neighbouring town of Citta di Castello. With all the features of the Umbrian School, they already show the freer impulse of his own mind,--a decided effort to individualize. The most excellent of these, and the most interesting example of this first period of Raphael's development, is the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (Lo Sposalizio), inscribed with his name and the date 1504, now in the Brera at Milan.

With much of the stiffness and constraint of the old school, the figures are n.o.ble and dignified; the countenances, of the sweetest style of beauty, are expressive of a tender, enthusiastic melancholy, which lends a peculiar charm to this subject.

In 1504 Raphael painted the two little pictures in the Louvre, _S.

George_ and _S. Michael_ (Nos. 1501-2) for the Duke of Urbino. _The Knight Dreaming_, a small picture, now in the National Gallery (No.

213), is supposed to have been painted a year earlier.

In the autumn of 1504 Raphael went to Florence. Tuscan art had now attained its highest perfection, and the most celebrated artists were there contending for the palm. From this period begins his emanc.i.p.ation

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VI.--PIETRO PERUGINO

CENTRAL PORTION OF ALTAR-PIECE

_National Gallery, London_]

from the confined manner of Perugino's school; the youth ripens into manhood and acquires the free mastery of form.

To this time belong the celebrated _Madonna del Granduca_, now in the Pitti Gallery, and another formerly belonging to the Duke of Terra Nuova, and now at Berlin (No. 247a). In the next year we find him employed on several large works in Perugia; these show for the first time the influence of Florentine art in the purity, fullness, and intelligent treatment of form; at the same time many of the motives of the Peruginesque school are still apparent. The famous _Cowper Madonna_, recently sold to an American for 140,000, also belongs to the year 1505, when the blending of the two influences resulted in a picture which has been extolled by the sanest of critics as "the loveliest of Raphael's Virgins." An altar-piece, executed for the church of the Serviti at Perugia, inscribed with the date 1506, is the famous _Madonna dei Ansidei_, purchased for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough. Besides the dreamy religious feeling of the School of Perugia, we perceive here the aim at a greater freedom, founded on deeper study.

Raphael was soon back in Florence, where he remained until 1508. The early paintings of this period betray, as might be expected, many reminiscences of the Peruginesque school, both in conception and execution; the later ones follow in all essential respects the general style of the Florentines.

One of the earliest is the _Virgin in the Meadow_, in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna. Two others show a close affinity with this composition; one is the _Madonna del Cardellino_, in the Tribune of the Uffizi, in which S. John presents a goldfinch to the infant Christ. The other is the so-called _Belle Jardiniere_, inscribed 1507, in the Louvre.

It is interesting to observe Raphael's progress in the smaller pictures which he painted in Florence--half-figures of the Madonna and Child.

Here again the earliest are characterised by the tenderest feeling, while a freer and more cheerful enjoyment of life is apparent in the later ones. The _Madonna della Casa Tempi_, at Munich, is the first of this series. In the picture from the Colonna Palace at Rome, now in the Berlin Museum (No. 248), the same childlike sportiveness, the same maternal tenderness, are developed with more harmonious refinement. A larger picture, belonging to the middle time of his Florentine period, is in the Munich Gallery--the _Madonna Canignani_, which presents a peculiar study of artificial grouping, in a pyramidal shape. Among the best pictures of the latter part of this Florentine period are the _S.

Catherine_, now in the National Gallery, formerly in the Aldobrandini Gallery at Rome, and two large altar-pieces. One of these is the _Madonna del Baldacchino_, in the Pitti Gallery. The other, _The Entombment_, painted for the church of S. Francesco at Perugia, is now in the Borghese Gallery at Rome. This is the first of Raphael's compositions in which an historical subject is dramatically developed; but in this respect the task exceeded his powers. The composition lacks repose and unity of effect; the movements are exaggerated and mannered; but the figure of the Saviour is extremely beautiful, and may be placed among the greatest of the master's creations.

About the middle of the year 1508, when only in his twenty-fifth year, Raphael was invited by Pope

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VII.--RAPHAEL

THE ANSIDEI MADONNA