ening and perspective ; he carried draperies to a per-
fection which remains unsurpassed; he found expres-
sion^ to the great astonishment of his contemporaries,
who might have said of him as Pliny of the Greek
Aristides, "He painted the soul and expressed hu-
man feelings." This painting, which the men of that
time called miractdous, was indeed real painting —
art escaped from the trammels of servitude. Giotto
also improved the materials and the technical pro-
cesses of his art, as the preparation of colors, and of
the wooden panels and canvas. On viewing the prin-
cipal works of Giotto, dispersed over the whole of
Italy — for example, the series of pictures called the
Life and Death of San Francesco d'Assisi— we recog-
nize how much he surpassed his immediate prede-
cessors ; in his pictures we see Italian separating
itself from Greek art ; we understand and repeat the
magnificent praises heaped on him by Dante, Pe-
trarch, Pius II., and Poliziano, who makes him say:
" Ille ego sum per quern pictura extincta revixit " (I am
he through whom extinct painting has again lived).

The progress of art in independence did not relax
under the numerous pupils whom Giotto left; Tad-
deo Gaddi, his favorite pupil; Stefano Fiorentino,
who approached nearer the true and real, from
whence he acquired the significant though singular
name of the Ape of Nature; Simone Memmi, of
Siena, sung by Petrarch, for whom he painted the



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TAINTINO IN OIL. 81

portrait of Madonna Laura; Pietro Laurati, Ugolino,
Puccio Capanna, Pietro Cavallini, Buonamico Buff
almacco, etc. The progress became more marked
and the separation from the Byzantines more com-
plete, when Andrea Orcagna painted his great fresco
of "Heir' in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, and,
in the Campo Santo of Pisa, his celebrated and sin-
gular picture of the Last Judgment, in which we
trace the ideas and descriptions of Dante. The Ital-
ian movement spread and grew with the frescoes of
Gherardo Stamina, and with the works of the differ-
ent masters which every town in Italy produced, as
if ea^rer for the development of the restored art.
There were at one time Franco and Yitale, of Bo-
logna ; Giovanni, of Pisa ; Coll'Antonio del Fiore, of
Naples; Tommaso and Barnaheo, of Modena; Lo-
renzo, of Yiterbo ; Carlo Crivelli, Marco Basaiti and
the two Yivarini, of Yenice ; Squarcione, of Padua ;
Mefozzo, of Forli, who was called the inventor of
foreshortening; the great Fra Giovanni, of Fiesole,
whom the public voice named Fra Angeh'co ; Paolo
Uccello, of Florence, inventor of perspective ; Pietro
della Francesca, who improved this science by the
application of geometry, etc. We come thus to Ma-
saccio, at the end of the fifteenth century, to the
Golden Age.

Until now we have only spoken of painting in
fresco or in distemper : we' now come to the last term
of tradition, and to true modern art — oil-painting.

We do not in the least know if this art was pos-
6



82 W0NDER8 OF ITALIAN ART.

sessed by the ancients. Nothing authorises us to be-
lieve that the} 7 used it, and that the employment of
oil in the preparation of colors had been merely aban-
doned during the mournful period of the dark ages,
and thence forgotten through the breaking of the
chain of tradition, to be found once more with the
other discoveries of the Renaissance. According to
the generally received opinion, it was the brothers
Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, of Bruges, who, in the
commencement of the fifteenth century, found out
the secret of oil-painting. No one seriously contests
the fact of their having done so, and even the Italians
Yasari and Lanzi confess that the painters in their
country learnt the process from the' Fleming, John
of Bruges (Jan Van Eyck). It does not however fol-
low that the invention was at first so perfect that no
one was able to improve upon it, or that no one could
have paved the way by preceding experiments; It
has indeed been proved, by quotations and formal
testimony, amongst others by the treatises of the
painter-monk Heraclius in the tenth century, of the
German monk Roger, surnamed Theophilus, in the
twelfth, and of the Italian Cennino di Andrea Cen-
nini, in the thirteenth — that the brothers Van Eyck
had rather the merit of a practical application of the
process than that of the invention itself.

Lanzi seems to have explained perfectly well
what was really the invention of the illustrious Flem-
ish painter. There is no doubt that, much before his
time, the use of oil was known in painting ; but the



PAINTING IN OIL. 83

manner of employing it was imperfect, being very
slow and difficult. According to the old method ouly
one color could be placed on the canvas or tlie panel
at a time, and to add a second, it was necessary to
wait until the first had dried in the sun, which was,
according to the same Theophilus, " too long and
tiresome for figures.' 1 It is easy then to understand
why distemper and encaustics were preferred. John
of Bruges, who at first did as other painters, having
one day, as tradition says, placed one of his pictures
to dry in the sun, the wooden panel burst from the
excessive heat. This accident induced him, with the
help of his elder brother, to seek some means of dry-
ing his colors alone and without artificial help. He
tried numerous experiments with linseed oil, and
succeeded at last in making a varnish, which, accord-
ing to Vasari, " once dry, no longer fears water,
brightens the colors, renders them more transparent,
and blends them admirably."

From the dates of the most ancient works of Jan
Van Eyck, preserved at Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp,
we may conjecture that he made or completed his
discovery between 1410 and 1420. But at this period
communication was difficult, especially betweeu the
countries of the North and those of the South. It
was only about the year 1442, that the king of Naples,
Alphonso V., received a picture by John of Bruges
(Jan Yan Eyck), since lost, but believed to have been
an Adoration of the Magi. It is known that another
picture by Yan Eyck came to the duke of Urbino,



84 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

Frederick II., and another — a St. Jerome — to Lorenzt
de Medici. The sight of thein caused general admira-
tion, and it was not long before the technical methods
employed were discovered and practised throughout
Italy.

According to Yasari, a certain Antonello of Mes-
sina having seen the picture at Naples, set out for
Flanders in the hope of penetrating the secret of these
new processes. ' He obtained the knowledge he sought
by giving a large number of Italian drawings in ex-
change. He could not have learnt it from Van Eyck
himself, as has lone; been thought, as we now know
that he died in 1441, but it was doubtless from one
of his pupils, possibly from Rogier Tan der Weyden,
who is called Roger of Bruges. On his return to
Italy, where he soon became celebrated, Antonello of
Messina communicated his discovery to his intimate
friend Domenico Yeneziano, who after having executed
several works at Loretto and Perugia, established him-
self at Florence about the year 1460. Without being
a great artist, Domenico found in his secret a means
of incontestable superiority. He excited the astonish-
ment of the public and the jealousy of his rivals. The
most formidable of the latter was Andrea del Castagno,
a man of great talent but, says Yasari, of a low and
ferocious character. Through a pretended friendship
he persuaded Domenico to teach him his secret ; then,
in order to possess it alone, he assassinated the un-
fortunate Venetian. This atrocious crime, of which
many innocent people were suspected, remained un-



PAINTING IN OIL. 8b

punished. Andrea del Castagno only revealed it on
his death-bed. But, as if in expiation of the infamous
way in which he had obtained the secret of Domenico,
he made no mystery of it, and announced it openly
at the same time that he proved its truth by his works.
Recent research has thrown great doubt on the
whole of this account by Vasari ; indeed, the crime
alleged against Andrea del Castagno has been dis-
proved by the discovery that Domenico Yeneziano
survived him four years.

m

During the last quarter of the fifteenth century,
the art of painting in oil was practised by all the great
masters of the time, including Pollaiuolo, Ghirlandaio,
Perugino, and Andrea Yerocchio. They transmitted
it to their illustrious disciples, Leonardo da Yinci,
Michael Angclo, and Raphael, who not only form the
last link in the chain of tradition, but at the same
time indicate the highest point which art could reach.

Here then, the proofs 1 had undertaken to furnish,
and which I think complete, naturally terminate; a
traditional chain of evidence attaches the painting of
the moderns to that of the ancients. But I foresee
one serious objection. It will be said, "In speaking
just now of Giotto, you announced that he depicted
expression, which made his works such a subject of
wonder to his contemporaries, and you added : 'This
was indeed true painting.' You should then have
proved the tradition not merely in the material pro-
cesses of the art of painting, in its cultivation or even
in its existence, but also in that superior part which



86 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

you call expression. Has that coiue down traditional-
ly from the Greeks to ourselves?"

To this question I unhesitatingly reply in the
negative. No. the highest quality of painting has not
been transmitted from the Grecian artists to those of
the Kenaissance. Dying with the former, it disap-
peared entirely during the whole intermediate period,
literally to revive with the latter. But I must add,
that this quality, being individual and belonging
personally to the artist, could not be transmitted by
tradition, which can only hand down to posterity
certain material processes and peculiarities in style of
the different schools. It is exactly this which forms
the radical difference between the sciences and arts.
The sciences can be transmitted entire, and he who
possesses any knowledge of mathematics, may easily
become possessed of all the knowledge collected from
Euclid to Laplace. The arts can only be communi-
cated through personal qualities, and Raphael himself
could only impart to his pupils the knowledge of his
method. " The secret of being himself died with him.



CHAPTER IV.

The Italian Schools.

^ In a history of modern art, Italy incontestable
claims the first rank. At the period of the Renais-
sance, notwithstanding the aspirations of Dante, re-
newed by Hachiavellij Italy was not united, but was
divided into a number of states; every state had its
own school, and hence every school requires a separate
history. We shall conform to this necessity by follow-
ing the usual division, and shall begin with Florence;
for in a history of Italian art it is to Florence that the
first rank as incontestably belongs.

Tuscan or Florentine School.

We have just seen that the Tuscan Giotto (1276-
1334) was the great promoter of the revival in all the
art^. After him, the most illustrious name found in
the annals of Tuscan painting is that of the monk
Guido d: Pictro, born in the town of Vecchio in 1387
(lie died at Rome in 1455), who took the name of Fra
Giovanni da Fiesole when he entered the order of
Dominicans in that town. Public admiration gave



88 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

him, however, even during his life, the title of Fra
Beato Angelico (as Morales, in Spain, was called the
Divine), for having so admirably expressed on canvas
the ardor of Christian feelings and the ecstasy of the
blessed. " His figures are souls only," says, with
justice, M. du Pays. Modest, simple, pious, chari-
table, sober, and chaste, Fra Angelico set a good
example in virtue as well as in talent. He refused
the archbishopric of Florence, and caused a poor
monk in his convent to be nominated by Nicholas V
instead of himself. A very laborious and fertile
painter of altar-screens, frescoes, pictures, and illumi-
nations, he never painted without a special prayer, nor
commenced any work without the permission of his
prior ; and he never retouched any of his works, say-
ing that God wished them as they were. After Fra
Angelico, his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli alone remained
faithful to strictly religious and mystic art, without
any intermixture from pagan antiquity.

The date of the birth and death of Fra Angelico
show sufficiently that he painted in distemper, for lie
could only have known oil-painting at the close of his
life, at an age when an artist no longer changes his
processes. Among the best of the numerous works
he has left is his Descent from the Cross, which is to
be found in Florence, not in the Museum of the Uffizi,
or in that of the Pitti palace, but in the Academy of
the Fine Arts, opened in 17S4 by the grand duke
Pietro Leopoldo, and which contains a rich collection
of the curiosities of Italian art between its infancy




CORONATION OF THE VIBGIN.— BY FRA ANGELICO.
In the Museum of the Louvre, Paris.



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FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 91

and maturity. But there is in the Louvre one of the
finest works of the Angelic Painter. The Coronation
of the Virgin is a large composition which contains
more than fifty figures, and is surrounded besides by
seven medallions, in which the miracles of St.Dominic
are represented, he being the patron saint of the
convent for which the picture was painted. It is of
this noble work that Yasari says, " Fra Giovanni sur-
passed himself in a picture ... in which Jesus Christ
crowns the Virgin in the midst of a choir of angels
and saints ... so varied in attitude and expression,
that one feels an infinite pleasure and delight in re-
garding them. It seems as if the happy souls can
look no otherwise in heaven ; for all the saints, male
and female, assembled here, have not only life and
expression most delicately and truly rendered, but the
coloring of the wdiole work seems done by the hand
of a saint or angel like themselves. As for myself, I
can affirm with truth that I never see this work with-
out finding in it something new, nor can I ever satisfy
myself with a sight of it, or have enough of beholding
it. 1 ' This Coronation of the Virgin, about which
Auguste Schlegel has written a whole volume, and
which ~M. Paul Mantz rightly calls "an enormous
miniature," was placed for a long time in the church
of San Domenico at Fiesole, and in some degree
worshipped as a holy relic of its saintly author.

The son of a poor shoemaker comes afterwards in
the list of great names (1407-14-t3), Tommaso Guidi
da San Giovanni, better known as Masaccio (the



92 WONDERS OF ITALIAN AET.

sloven). He differs entirely from the monk of Fie-
sole. His figures are not souls, but real bodies, firm
and exact in their contours and in their movements.
Masaccio drew in the style of Michael Angelo, and
with his force. Unfortunately, dying young, he left
few works. Amongst all the museums of Europe,
that of Munich alone possesses works of Masaccio,*
a Monk'' s Head in fresco, a St. Antony of JPadua, in
distemper and on wood, and the portrait of the paint-
er, wearing the red cap of the Florentines, like Dante
and Petrarch. Even at Florence, the museum of the
Ufiizi can only show an astonishing Head of an Old
Man, painted by Masaccio on a tile. It is at the
church del Carmine in that town that we can study
and admire him. It is there that his great frescoes
are to be seen ; the Raising of a Dead Child by St.
Peter, and the Martyrdom of St. Peter. The mural
pictures in the chapel of the Brancaeci, also by Ma-
saccio, formed a common study for all the masters
born or residing at Florence, from the time of Fra
Angelico to that of Leonardo da Vinci, Michael An-
gelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto. What higher
praise could we give than the names of such volun-
tary disciples ?

In the hasty sketch which the limits of our bool
impose on us, we can only find room for the highesf
artists, universally known and celebrated, and recog-
nised as the divinities of painting. When we come

* In tbe National Gallery is his own portrait by himself (No. 626.)



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FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 95

to the middle of the fifteenth century, the period
immediately preceding these " divinities of art," and
which was that of their teachers, we are obliged to
make a selection only from among these masters, so
especially great through their pupils ; and, passing
by with regret Filippo Lippi, Antonio Pollaiuolo,
Lorenzo da Credi, who exercised an influence over
the whole school, Andrea del Verocchio, who formed
Leonardo da Vinci, and Domenico Ghirlandaio, who
formed Michael Angelo, we halt at Perugino, the
master of Raphael.

Pietro Vanucci (1446-1524), of Perngia, whence
he derived his surname, came to Florence when very
young, and so poor, that he slept in a chest for lack
of a bed. But he made himself known, and won
such eclat, that he was soon in a position to open a
school, where the father of Raphael, Giovanni Sanzio,
brought him his child ; the modest painter and wise
father not considering himself capable of instructing
or worthy of directing such precocious genius. Peru-
gino counted also among his disciples Pinturicchio,
11 Bacchiata, Lo Spagna, Gerino de Pistoia, and that
Andrea Luigi of Assisi, surnamed l'lngegno, who at
eighteen years of age was, according to Vasari, called
the rival of Raphael, but who became blind before
he had attained the age for great works, or rather, as
documentary evidence seems to indicate, who left art
for civic employment.

Perugino was one of the first painters sent for to
Rome by Sixtus IV., who entrusted him with a part



96 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

of the paintings to decorate the chapel which beare
the name of that pontiff (the Sistine). He has left
in it one of his largest and most beautiful frescoes.
St. Peter receiving the Keys. In Florence there is in
the Pitti palace a magnificent Entombment / at Rome,
in the museum of the Vatican, a Resurrection, in
which he has, it is said, introduced his much-loved
pupil, while still a youth, under the form of the sleep
ing soldier, aud himself under that of the soldier who
is running off in fear ; and at Naples there is in the
Museum degli Studi an Eternal Father between four
cherubim. For a long time the Louvre possessed
only a simple sketch by Perugino, the Combat of
Chastity and Love, painted in distemper, although
dated 1505, because, as Perugino himself says in the
letter sent with it, a picture by Andrea Mantegna, to
which his was to be a pendant, was painted by the
same process ; a remarkable p/oof of the persistent
employment of distemper long after the generally-
spread knowledge of oil-painting. But the Louvre
now boasts paintings more worthy of Perugino, as a
Nativity, a Virgin in Glory worshipped by St. Rosa,
St. Catherine, and Two Angels, and lastly, a Ma-
donna and Child between St. Joseph and St. Cath-
erine, remarkable for the reverential style, the charm-
ing grace, and the exquisite color.

If however we wish to know Perugino well out
of Italy, we must see his pictures in Germany and in
England. And first, there are at Berlin two Madon-
nas with a landscape background. Notwithstanding



FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 97

the care taken to assign them to Raphael when still
in the school of Perugino, there seems no doubt to
me that they are both the work of Perugino himself.

At Vienna, at the Belvedere Gallery, Perugino
holds the first place in the Roman hall ; his Madonna
between St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Jerome and St.
John the Baptist, dated 1493, is one of his largest
and most admirable compositions. It is to be regret-
ted that it should have been cleaned and touched up
so often. Munich is still richer than either Vienna or
Berlin. It possesses a half-length Madonna standing
out from a clear sky ; a Virgin kneeling between St.
Nicholas and St. John the Evangelist, and adoring
the Infant Saviour, and the Appearance of the Vir-
gin to St. Bernard ; two angels accompany the
mother of the Saviour, and two saints are with St.
Bernard. These three remarkable works, in perfect
preservation, and of large size for easel-pictures by
Perugino, attain the utmost excellence of his style, so
sweet, so tender, so certain to soften and to charm the
beholder. The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Bfi
nard is a surpassingly beautiful picture, and Raphael
himself has, in the simple religious style, achieved
nothing finer. It is before the paintings of Perugino
that we see clearly how much a pupil owes to his
master, and that the truth of the saying is verified,
that great geniuses are only a complete summary of
their forerunners and contemporaries.

In London, the National Gallery can show with
pride a picture which Vasari declares to be a chef-

StapHon Branch,
83 Canal Street.




98 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

d'ceuvre of the old master of Perugia. It is a trip-
tych : in the centre is the Holy Family ; to the left.
the Archangel Michael in full armor ; to the right,
the archangel Raphael holding the young Tobit by
the hand. Vasari is right ; it would be difficult to
find in all the works of Perugino anything superior
to this. It is in perfect preservation, and unites in
itself every kind of beauty. Several parts of this
triple picture — for example, the young Tobit, or the
group of the Madonna and Child — resemble the ear-
liest works of Raphael to such a degree that many
have supposed that the master must have been helped
by the pupil, who would be thus in part the painter
of this masterpiece. I do not think so ; it appears to
me that it is the work of Perugino alone. It is how-
ever probable that this picture belongs to a more ad-
vanced period of his life, when Perugino, who sur-

'ved his pupil four years, might have profited by his
ample, and improved his primitive style under the

Vlluence of Raphael. Vanucci would thus have
. ^ased to be the master of Raphael, and have become
his disciple. This mutual help, this mutual teaching,
producing a reaction in style, is often seen in the his-
tory of art ; and at the same time the same phenome-
non — if we may so call it — was taking place at Ven-
ice between Bellini and Giorgione.

We have now come to the great Leonardo da
Vinci (1452-1519), the natural son of a notary of
Vinci. A painter, skilful draughtsman, and even
caricaturist, a sculptor and architect, an engineer and




TllE VIIiGIN AMONG THE ROCKS (Verge aux Rochers)

BY LKONAIJDO DA VINCI.

In the Museum of the Louvre, Paris.



584269



FLOKENTINE SCHOOL. 101

mechanician, learned in mathematics, physics, astron

oiny, anatomy, and natural history, a good musician,
making verses with the facility of an improvisatore,
writing well on every subject which interested him,
expert also in all the exercises of strength or skill, in
short a universal genius, and "all-powerful in every-
thing," Leonardo da Vinci devoted to painting a small
share of his time and labor. lie moreover finished
his works with, the eare, patience, and love of a mod-
est and even timid artist, of one who is never com-
pletely satisfied with himself, who dreams of and
reeks passionately after supreme beauty, who longs,
us Yasari says, " to heap excellence on excellence and
perfection on perfection." Leonardo traced in this
line the rule for his labors as for his conduct.

Vogli sempr^. peter quel die tu debbi.

These two reasons would be sufficient to render the
works of this master as rare as they are precious.
Unfortunately several of those which he left have
nearly perished from the effect of time.

In Paris are but five paintings by his hand, al-
though da Yinci spent the four last years of his life
in France, and ended, at Amboise, almost in the arms
of Francis I., his prolonged life, filled with so many
different labors. In the half-length portrait of St.
John the Baptist, the saint is represented as resem-
bling rather a young, delicate woman, than the rough
preacher of the desert, the ascetic feeding on locusts.
But, as this same fault of effeminacy is found in the



102 WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART.

St. John by Raphael, which is in the Tribune of the
Uffizi Gallery at Florence, it is evident that the con-
ventional ideas of the Baptist were not, at that pe-
riod, in accordance with those we gather from the