The Venetian School of Painting Part 13

Romanino is often very poor and empty, and fails most in selection and expression at the moments when he most needs to be great, but he is successful in the golden style he adopted after his closer contact with the Venetians, and his draperies and flesh tints are extremely brilliant. He is, indeed, inclined to be gaudy and careless in execution, and even the fine "Nativity" in the National Gallery gives the impression that size is more regarded than thought and feeling.

Moretto is perhaps the only painter from the mainland who, coming within the charmed circle of Venetian art and betraying the study of Palma and t.i.tian and the influence of Pordenone, still keeps his own gamut of colour, and as he goes on, gets consistently cooler and more silvery in his tones. He can only be fully studied in Brescia itself, where literally dozens of altarpieces and wall-paintings show him in every phase. His first connection was probably with Romanino, but he reminds us at one time of t.i.tian by his serious realism, and finished, careful painting, at another of Raphael, by the grace and sentiment of his heads, and as time goes on he foreshadows the style of Veronese. In the "Feast in the House of Simon" in the organ-loft of the Church of the Pieta in Venice, the very name prepares us for the airy, colonnaded building, with vistas of blue sky and landscape, and the costly raiment and plenishing which might have been seen at any Venetian or Brescian banquet. In his portraits Moretto sometimes rivals Lotto. His personages are always dignified and expressive, with pale, high-bred faces, and exceedingly picturesque in dress and general arrangement. He loved to paint a great gentleman, like the Sciarra Martinengo in the National Gallery, and to endow him with an air of romantic interest.

One of those who entered so closely into the spirit of the Venetian School that he may almost be included within it, is Savoldo. His pictures are rare, and no gallery can show more than one or two examples. The Louvre has a portrait by him of Gaston de Foix, long thought to be by Giorgione. His native town can only show one altarpiece, an "Adoration of Shepherds," low in tone but intense in dusky shadow with fringes of light. He is grey and slaty in his shadows, and often rough and startling in effect, but at his best he produces very beautiful, rich, evening harmonies; and a letter from Aretino bears witness to the estimation in which he was held.

It is not easy to say if Brescia or Vicenza has most claim to Bartolommeo Montagna, the early master of Cima. Born of Brescian parents, he settled early in Vicenza, and he is by far the most distinguished of those Vicentine painters who drank at the Venetian fount. He must have gone early to Venice and worked with the Vivarini, for in his altarpiece in the Brera he has the vaulted porticoes in which Bartolommeo and Alvise Vivarini delighted. His "Madonna enthroned"

in the gallery at Vicenza has many points of contact with that of Alvise at Berlin. Among these are the four saints, the cupola, and the raised throne, and he is specially attracted by the groups of music-making angels; but Montagna has more moral greatness than Alvise, and his lines are stronger and more sinewy. He keeps faithful to the Alvisian feeling for calm and sweetness, but his personages have greater weight and gravity. He essays, too, a "Pieta" with saints, at Monte Berico, and shows both pathos and vehemence. He has evidently seen Bellini's rendering, and attempts, if only with partial success, to contrast in the same way the indifference of death with the contemplation and anguish of the bereaved. Hard and angular as Montagna's saints often are, they show power and austerity. His colour is brilliant and enamel-like; he does not arrive at the Venetian depth, yet his altarpieces are very grand, and once more we are struck by the greatness of even the secondary painters who drew their inspiration from Padua and Venice.

Among the other Vicentines, Giovanni Speranza and Giovanni Buonconsiglio were imbued with characteristics of Mantegna. Speranza, in one of his few remaining works, almost reproduces the beautiful "a.s.sumption" by Pizzolo, Mantegna's young fellow-student, in the Chapel of the Eremitani. He employs Buonconsiglio as an a.s.sistant, and they imitate Montagna to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish between their works. Buonconsiglio's "Pieta" in the Vicenza gallery, is reminiscent of Montagna's at Monte Berico. The types are lean and bony, the features are almost as rugged as Durer's, the flesh earthy and greenish. About 1497 Buonconsiglio was studying oils with Antonello da Messina; he begins to reside in Venice, and a change comes over his manner. His colours show a brilliancy and depth acquired by studying t.i.tian; and then, again, his bright tints remind us of Lotto. His name was on the register of the Venetian Guild as late as 1530.

After Pisanello's achievement and his marked effect on early Venetian art, Veronese painting fell for a time to a very low ebb; but Mantegna's influence was strongly felt here, and art revived in Liberale da Verona, Falconetto, Casoto, the Morone and Girolamo dai Libri, painters delightful in themselves, but having little connection with the school of Venice. Frances...o...b..nsignori, however, shook himself free from the narrow circle of Veronese art, where he had for a time followed Liberale, and grows more like the Vicentines, Montagna and Buonconsiglio. He is careful about his drawing, but his figures, like those of many of these provincial painters, are short, bony and vulgar, very unlike the slender, distinguished type of the great Paduan. Under the name of Francesco da Verona, Bonsignori works in the new palace of the Gonzagas, and several pictures painted for Mantua are now scattered in different collections. At Verona he has left four fine altarpieces.

He went early to Venice, where he became the pupil of the Vivarini. His faces grow soft and oval, and the very careful outlines suggest the influence of Bellini.

Girolamo Mocetto was journeyman to Giovanni Bellini; in fact, Vasari says that a "Dead Christ" in S. Francesco della Vigna, signed with Bellini's name, is from Mocetto's hand. His short, broad figures have something of Bartolommeo Vivarini's character.

Francesco Torbido went to Venice to study with Giorgione, and we can trace his master's manner of turning half tones into deep shades; but he does not really understand the Giorgionesque treatment, in which shade was always rich and deep, but never dark, dirty and impenetrable, nor in the lights can he produce the clear glow of Giorgione. Another Veronese, Cavazzola, has left a masterpiece upon which any painter might be happy to rest his reputation; the "Gattemalata with an Esquire" in the Uffizi, a picture n.o.ble in feeling and in execution, and one which owes a great deal to Venetian portrait-painters.

PRINc.i.p.aL WORKS

_Pordenone._

Casara. Old Church: Frescoes, 1525.

Colatto. S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.).

Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha; Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned with Saints and Donor, 1522.

Murano. S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.).

Piacenza. Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31.

Pordenone. Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints, 1535.

Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525.

Spilimbergo. Duomo: a.s.sumption; Conversion of S. Paul.

Sensigana. Madonna and Saints.

Torre. Madonna and Saints.

Treviso. Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520.

Venice. Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family; Saints.

S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints.

S. Rocco: Saints, 1528.

_Pellegrino._

San Daniele. Frescoes in S. Antonio.

Cividale. S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints.

Venice. Academy: Annunciation.

_Romanino._

Bergamo. S. Alessandro in Colonna: a.s.sumption.

Berlin. Madonna and Saints; Pieta.

Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Portrait; Christ bearing Cross; Nativity; Coronation.

Duomo: Sacristy: Birth of Virgin; Visitation.

S. Francesco: Madonna and Saints; Sposalizio.

Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes.

London. Polyptych; Portrait.

Padua. Last Supper; Madonna and Saints.

Sato, Lago di Garda. Duomo: Saints and Donor.

Trent. Castello: Frescoes.

Verona. St. Jerome. S. Giorgio in Braida: Organ shutters.

_Moretto._

Bergamo. Lochis: Holy Family; Christ bearing Cross; Donor.

Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Nativity and Saints; Madonna appearing to S. Francis; Saints; Madonna in Glory with Saints; Christ at Emmaus; Annunciation.

S. Clemente: High Altar and four other Altarpieces.

S. Francesco: Altarpiece.

S. Giovanni Evangelista: High Altar; Third Altar.

S. Maria in Calchera: Dead Christ and Saints; Magdalen washing Feet of Christ.

S. Maria delle Grazie: High Altar.

SS. Nazaro and Celso: Two Altarpieces; Sacristy: Nativity.

Seminario di S. Angelo: High Altar.

London. Portrait of Count Sciarra Martinengo; Portrait; Madonna and Saints; Two Angels.

Milan. Brera: Madonna and Saints; a.s.sumption.

Castello: Triptych; Saints.

Rome. Vatican: Madonna enthroned with Saints.

Venice. S. Maria della Pieta: Christ in the House of Levi.

Verona. S. Giorgio in Braida: Madonna and Saints.

_Bartolommeo Montagna._

Bergamo. Lochis: Madonna and Saint, 1487.

Berlin. Madonna, Saints, and Donors, 1500.

Milan. Brera: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.

Padua. Scuola del Santo: Fresco; Opening of S. Antony's Tomb.

Pavia. Certosa: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.

Venice. Academy: Madonna and Saints; Christ with Saints.

Verona. SS. Nazaro e Celso: Saints; Pieta; Frescoes, 1491-93.

Vicenza. Holy Family; Madonna enthroned; Two Madonnas with Saints; Three Madonnas.

Duomo: Altarpiece; Frescoes.

S. Corona: Madonna and Saints.

Monte Berico: Pieta, 1500; Fresco.

CHAPTER XXIV

PAOLO VERONESE