tales, says : ** Can we mention a violent act of
Raphael's, Goethe's or Shakespeare's? No, it
is restful only to recall these wonderful men."
One of Raphael's most beautiful Virgins was
modeled from a beautiful flower-girl whom he
loved, "La Belle Jardiniere."
Raphael as well as Michael Angelo was
summoned by Pope Julius II., but how
different were the two occasions! Michael
Angelo had stood with dogged, gloomy self-
assertiveness before the pope, head covered,
knee unbent. Uncompromising, while yet no
injury had been done him, resentful before he
had received a single cause for resentment,
the attitude was typical of his art and his
unhappy life.
When Raphael appeared, his bent knee, his
"chestnut locks falling upon his shoulders,
the pope exclaimed : * He is an innocent
angel. I will give him Cardinal Bembo for a
teacher, and he shall fill my walls with historical
pictures.' " The artist's behaviour was no
sign of servility, but the simple recognition of
forms and customs which the people themselves
had made and by which they had decided they
should graciously be bound. The attitude of
Raphael {Sanzio) 231
Angelo was not heroic but vulgar; that of
Raphael not servile, but in good taste, showing
a reasonable mind.
Pope Julius had summoned Raphael for a
special reason. Alexander VI., his predecessor
in the Vatican, had been a depraved man.
The fair and virile Julius had a healthy
sentiment against occupying rooms which must
continually remind him of the notorious
Alexander's mode of hfe. Some one suggested
that he have all the portraits of the former pope
removed, but Julius declared: *' Even if the
portraits were destroyed, the walls themselves
would remind me of that Simoniac, that Jew!"
The word 'Jew' was then execrated by all
Christians, for the world was not yet Christian
enough to know better.
Raphael w^as summoned to decorate the
Vatican, that Julius might have a place which
reminded him not at all of Alexander. It is
said that when Raphael had completed one of
his masterpieces the pope threw^ himself upon
the ground and cried, ** I thank Thee, God, that
Thou hast sent me so great a painter! "
While at work upon his first fresco at the
Vatican — **La Disputa," the dispute over
the Holy Sacrament — Raphael met a woman
with whom he fell deeply in love. Her father
was a soda manufacturer and her name w^as
Margherita. Missirini relates this incident in
Raphael's career.
*' She lived on the other side of the Tiber.
232 Pictures Every Child Should Know
A small house, No. 20, in the street of Santa
Dorothea, the windows of which are decorated
with a pretty frame work of earthenware,
is pointed out as the house where she was born.
"The beautiful girl was very frequently in
a little garden adjoining the house, where,
the wall not being very high, it was easy to see
her from the outside. So the young men,
especially artists — always passionate admirers
of beauty — did not fail to come and look at
her, by climbing up above the wall.
"Raphael is said to have seen her for the
first time as she w^as bathing her pretty feet
in a little fountain in the garden. Struck by
her perfect beauty, he fell deeply in love with
her, and after having made acquaintance with
her, and discovered that her mind was as
beautiful as her body, he became so much
attached as to be unable to live without her."
She is spoken of to-day as the ** Fornarina,"
because at first she was supposed to have
been the daughter of a baker (fornajo).
Raphael made many rough studies for his
picture "La Disputa," and upon them he left
three sonnets, wTitten to the woman so dear to
him. These sonnets have been translated by
the librarian of I'Ecole Nationale des Beaux-
Arts, as follows : " Love, thou hast bound me
with the light of two eyes which torment me,
with a face like snow and roses, with sweet
words and tender manners. So great is my
ardour that no river or sea could extinguish
Raphael {Sanzio) 233
my fire. But I do not complain, for my
ardour makes me happy. . . . How sweet
was the chain, how Hght the yoke of her
white arms about my neck. When these bonds
were loosed, I felt a mortal grief. I will say
no more; a great joy kills, and, though my
thoughts turn to thee, I will keep silence."
Although he had been a man of many loves,
Raphael must have found in the manufacturer's
daughter his best love, because he remained
faithful and devoted to her for the twelve
years of life that were left to him. It was said
some years later, while he was engaged upon a
commission for a rich banker, that ** Raphael
was so much occupied with the love that he
bore to the lady of his choice that he could not
give sufficient attention to his work. Agostino
(the banker) therefore, falling at length into
despair of seeing it finished, made so many
efforts by means of friends and by his own care
that after much difficulty he at length prevailed
on the lady to take up her abode in his house,
where she was accordingly installed, in apart-
ments near those which Raphael was painting;
in this manner the work was ultimately brought
to a conclusion."
Raphael painted this beautiful lady-love
many times, and in a picture in which she
wears a bracelet he has placed his name upon
the ornament.
After this time he painted the ''Madonna
della Casa d'Alba," which the Duchess d'xVlba
234 Pictures Every Child Should Know
gave to her physician for curing her of a grave
disorder. She died soon afterward, and the
physician was arrested on the charge of having
poisoned her. In course of time the picture
was purchased for $70,000 by the Russian
Emperor, and it is now in ''The Hermitage,'*
St. Petersburg.
A writer telUng of that time, relates the
following anecdote: "Raphael of Urbino had
painted for Agostino Chigi (the rich banker
already mentioned) at Santa Maria della Pace,
some prophets and sibyls, on which he had
received an advance of five hundred scudi.
One day he demanded of Agostino 's cashier
(Giulio Borghesi) the remainder of the sum
at which he estimated his work. The cashier,
being astounded at this demand, and thinking
that the sum already paid was sufficient, did
not reply. Xause the work to be estimated
by a judge of painting,' replied Raphael, 'and
you will see how moderate my demand is.'
'' Giulio Borghesi thought of Michael Angelo
for this valuation, and begged him to go to
the church and estimate the figures of Raphael.
Possibly he imagined that self-love, rivalry,
and jealousy would lead the Florentine to
lower the price of the pictures.
"Michael Angelo went, accompanied by the
cashier, to Santa Maria della Pace, and, as he
was contemplating the fresco without uttering
a word, Borghesi questioned him. 'That
head,' replied Michael Angelo, pointing to one
RapJiael (Sancio) 235
of the sil^yls, ' that head is worth a hundred
scudi.' . . . 'and the others?' asked the
cashier. 'The others are not less.*
"Someone who witnevssed this scene related
it to Chigi. He heard every particular and,
offering in addition to the five hundred scudi
for five heads a hundred scudi to be paid for
each of the others, he said to his cashier, *go
and give that to Raphael in payment for his
heads, and behave very politely to him, so that
he may be satisfied ; for if he insists on my
paying also for the drapery, we should prob-
ably be ruined!' "
By the time Raphael was thirty-one he was
a rich man, and had built himself a beautiful
house near the Vatican, on the Via di Borgo
Nuova. Naught remains of that dwelling
except an angle of the right basement, which
has been made a part of the Accoramboni
Palace. His friends wished him above all
things to marry, but he was still true to Mar-
gherita though he had become engaged to
the daughter of his nephew. He put the
marriage oft' year after year, till finally the
lady he was to have married died, and was
buried in Raphael's chapel in the Pantheon.
Margherita was with him when he died, and
it was to her that he left much of his wealth.
In the time of Raphael excavations were
being made about Rome, and many beautiful
statues uncovered, and he was charged
with the supervision of this work in order that
236 Pictures Every Child Should Know
no art treasure should be lost or overlooked.
The pope decreed that if the excavators failed
to acquaint Raphael with every stone and
tablet that should he unearthed, they should
be fined from one to three hundred gold crowns.
Raphael had his many paintings copied imder
his own eye and engraved, and then distributed
broadcast, so that not only men of great wealth
but the common people might study them,
Henry VIII. invited him to visit England, and
become court painter, and Francis I. wished
him to become the court painter of France.
He loved history, and wished to write certain
historical works. He loved poetry and wrote
it. He loved philosophy and lived it — the
philosophy of generous feeling and kindly
thought for all the world. He kept poor
artists in his own home and provided for them.
Raphael died on Good Friday night,
April 6th, in his thirty-seventh year, and all
Rome wept. He lay in state in his beautiful
home, with his unfinished picture of the
"Transfiguration," as backgroimd for his
catafalque. That painting with its colours
still wet, was carried in the procession to his
burial place in the Pantheon. When his death
was announced, the pope, Leo X., wept and
cried ^^Ora pro nobis P' while the Ambassador
from Mantua wrote home that "nothing is talked
of here but the loss of the man who at the close
of his six-and-thirtieth year has now ended
his first life ; his second, that of his posthumous
Raphael {Sanzio) 237
fame, independent of death and transitory-
things, through his works, and in what the
learned will write in his praise, must continue
forever."
Raphael painted two hundred and eighty-
seven pictures in his thirty-seven years of life.
PLATE THE SISTINE MADONNA
It is said that the "Sistine Madonna," while
painted from an Italian model — doubtless
the lady whom Raphael so dearly loved — has
universal characteristics, so that she may "be
imderstood by everyone."
He lived only three years after painting this
picture and it was the last ''Holy Family"
painted by him. The Madonna stands upon a
curve of the earth, which is scarcely to be seen,
and looming mistily in front of her is a mass of
white vaporous clouds. On either side are
figures, St. Sixtus (for whom the picture was
named) and St. Barbara. Beside St. Sixtus
we see a crown or tiara ; and the little tow^er at
St. Barbara's side is a part of her story.
Barbara was the daughter of an Eastern
nobleman w^ho feared that her great beauty
might lead to her being carried off; therefore
he caused her to be shut up in a great tower.
While thus imprisoned Barbara became a
Christian through the influence of a holy man,
and she begged her father to make three
windows in her gloomy tower: one, to let the
238 Pictures Every Child Should Know
light of the Father stream upon her, another
to admit the Hght of the Son, and the third
that she might bathe in the Hght of the Holy
Ghost. Both St. Barbara and St. Sixtus were
martyrs for their faith.
This Madonna is painted as if enclosed by
green velvet curtains, which have been drawn
aside, letting the golden light of the picture
blaze upon the one who looks; then upon a
little ledge below, looking out from the heavens,
are two little cherubs — known to all the world.
They look wistful, wise, roguish, and beautiful,
with fat little arms resting comfortably upon
the ledge. Raphael is said to have found his
models for these little angels in the street,
leaning wistfully upon the ledge of a baker's
window, looking at the good things to eat,
which were within. Raphael took them, put
wings to them, placed them at the feet of
Mary, and made two little images which have
brought smiles and tears to a multitude of
people. The "Sistine Madonna" hangs alone
in a room in the Dresden Gallery.
Among Raphael's greatest works are: The
" Madonna della Sedia " (of the chair) , " La Belle
Jardiniere," "The School of Athens," "Saint
Cecilia," "The Transfiguration," ''Death of
Ananias" (a cartoon for a series of tapestries),
"Madonna del Pesce," "La Disputa," "The
Marriage of Mary and Joseph," "St. George
Slaying the Dragon," "St. Michael Attacking
Satan" and the "Coronation of the Virgin."
XXXIII
REMBRANDT (VAN RIJN)
Dutch School 1 606-1 669
Pupil of Van Swanenhnrch
HERE are a few of the titles that have been
given to the greatest Dutch painter that
ever Hved : The Shakespeare of Painting ; the
Prince of Etchers; the King of Shadows; the
Painter of Painters. Muther calls him a " hero
from cloudland," and not only does he alone
wear these titles of greatness, but he alone
in his family had the name of Rembrandt.
One writer has said that the great painter
was bom "in a windmill," but this is not true.
He was bom in Leyden for certain, though
not a great deal is known about his youth ; and
his father was a miller, his mother a baker's
daughter.
When the Pilgrim Fathers, who had sought
safety in Leyden, were starting for America,
where they were going to oppress others as
they had been oppressed, Rembrandt was
just beginning his apprenticeship in art.
He was born at No. 3, Weddesteg, a house
on the rampart looking out upon the Rhine
whose two arms meet there. In front of it
whirled the great arms of his father's windmill,
239
240 Pictures Every Child Should Know
though he was not born in it; and of all the
women Rembrandt ever knew, it is not likely
that he ever admired or loved one as passion-
ately as he admired and loved his mother. He
painted and etched her again and again, with a
touch so tender that his deepest emotion is
placed before us.
Rembrandt had brothers and sisters — five ;
Adriaen, Gerrit, Machteld, Cornelis, and Willem.
Of these, Adriaen became a miller like his
father, and presumably the old historic windmill
fell to him; Willem became a baker, but
Rembrandt, the fourth child, it was determined
should be a learned man, and belong to one
of the honoured professions, such as the law.
So he was sent to the Leyden Academy, but
here again we have an artist who decided he
knew enough of all else but art before he was
twelve years old. He found himself at that age
in the studio of his first art -master, Jacob van
Swanenburch, a relative, who had studied art
in Italy, and was a good master for the lad;
but Rembrandt became so brilliant a painter
in three years' time, that he was sent to Amster-
dam to learn of abler men.
The lad could not in those days get far from
his adored mother ; so he stayed only a little
time, before he w^ent back to Leyden where she
was. There was his heart, and, painting or no
painting, he must be near it.
Until the past thirty years no one has
seemed to know a great deal of Rembrandt's
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Rembrandt (Fan Rijn) 241
early history, but much was written of him
as a boorish, gross, vulgar fellow. Those
stories were false. He was a devoted son,
handsome, studious in art, and earnest in
all that he did, and after he had made his
first notable painting he was compelled by the
demands of his work to move to Amsterdam
for good. He hired an apartment over a shop
on the Quay Bloemgracht; it is probable
that his sister w^ent with him to keep his house,
and that it is her face repeated so frequently
in the many pictures which he painted at
that time. This does not suggest coarse doings
or a careless life, but permits us to imagine a
quiet, sober, unselfish existence for the young
bachelor at that time.
Soon, however, he fell in love. He saw one
other woman to place in his heart and memory
beside his mother. His wife was Saskia van
Ulenburg, the daughter of an aristocrat,
refined and rich. He met her through her
cousin, an art dealer, w^ho had ordered Rem-
brandt to paint a portrait of his dainty cousin.
Rembrandt could have been nothing but what
was delightful and good, since he was loved
by so charming a girl as Saskia.
He painted her sitting upon his knee, and
used her as model in many pictures. First,
last, and always he loved her tenderly.
In one portrait she is dressed in *'red and
gold-embroidered velvets" ; the mantle she wore
he had brought from Leyden. In another
242 Pictures Every Child Should Know
picture she is at her toilet, having her hair
arranged; again she is painted in a great red
velvet hat, and then as a Jewish bride, wearing
pearls, and holding a shepherd's staff in her
hand. Again, Rembrandt painted himself as a
giant at the feet of a dainty woman, and in
every way his work showed his love for her. After
he married her, in June 1634, he painted the
picture, " Samson's Wedding," '' Saskia, dainty
and serene, sitting like a princess in a circle of
her relatives, he himself appearing as a crude
plebeian, w^hose strange jokes frighten more than
they amuse the distinguished company. . . .
The early years of his marriage were spent in
joy and revelry. Surrounded by calculating
business men who kept a tight grasp on their
money bags, he assumed the role of an artist
scattering money w4th a free hand ; surrounded
by small townsmen most proper in demeanour,
he revealed himself as the bold lasquenet,
frightening them by his cavalier manners. He
brought together all manner of Oriental arms,
ancient fabrics, and gleaming jewellery ; and his
house became one of the sights of Amsterdam."
His existence reads like a fairy tale.
It is said that Saskia strutted about decked
in gold and diamonds, till her relatives ''shook
their heads" in alarm and amazement at such
wild goings on.
Before he married Saskia he had painted a
remarkable picture, named the "School of
Anatomy." It represents a great anatomist,
Rembrandt (Van Rijn) 243
the friend of Rembrandt — Nicholaus Tulp,
— and a group of physicians who were members
of the Guild of SurgeoTis of Amsterdam. It is
so wonderful a picture that even the dead
man, who is being used as a subject by the
anatomist, does not too greatly disturb us as
we look upon him. The thoughtful, interested
faces of the surgeons are so strong that we half
lose ourselves in their feeling, and forget to
start in repulsion at sight of the dead body.
A fine description of this painting can be found
in Sarah K. Bolton's book "Famous Artists"
and it includes the description given by another
excellent authority.
The artist was twenty-six years old when he
painted the ''School of Anatomy." This
picture is now at The Hague and two hundred
years after it w^as painted the Dutch Government
gave 30,000 florins for it.
Rembrandt painted a good many '' Samsons "
first and last — himself evidently being the
strong man; and the pictures beyond doubt
express his own mood and his idea of his rela-
tion to things. After a little son was born to
the artist, he painted still another Samson —
this time menacing his father-in-law but as the
artist had named his son after his father-in-law,
— Rombertus — we cannot believe that there
was any menace in the heart of Rembrandt-
Samson. Soon his son died, and Rembrandt
thought he should never again know happiness,
or that the world could hold a greater grief,
244 Pictures Every Child Should Know
but one day he was to learn otherwise. A
little girl was born to the artist, named
Cornelia, after Rembrandt's mother, and he
was again very happy.
Meantime his brothers and sisters had died,
and there came some trouble over Rembrandt's
inheritance, but what angered him most of all,
was that Saskia's relatives said she "had
squandered her heritage in ornaments and
ostentation." This made Rembrandt wild
with rage, and he sued her slanderers, for he
himself had done the squandering, buying every
beautiful thing he could find or pay for, to
deck Saskia in, and he meant to go on doing so.
At this time he painted a picture of "The
Feast of Ahasuerus" (or the "Wedding of
Samson") and he placed Saskia in the middle
of the table to represent Esther or Delilah as
the case might be, dressed in a way to
horrify her critical relatives, for she looked like
a veritable princess laden with gorgeous
jewels.
One of his pictures he wished to have hung
in a strong light, for he said: "Pictures are
not made to be smelt. The odour of the colours
is unhealthy."
The first baby girl died and on the birth
of another daughter she too w^as named Corne-
lia, but that baby girl also died, and next
came a son, Titus, named for Saskia's sister,
Titia, and then Saskia died. Thus Rembrandt
knew the deepest sorrow of his life.
Remhraudt {Van Rijn) 245
He painted her portrait once aj^ain from
memory, and that picture is quite unhke the
others for it is no longer full of glowing life,
but daintier, suggestive of a more spiritual life,
as if she were growing fragile.
It is written that " from this time, while he
did much remarkable work, he seemed like a
man on a mountain top, looking on one side to
sweet meadows filled with flowers and sunlight,
and on the other to a desolate landscape over
which a clouded sun is setting." With Saskia
died the best of Rembrandt. He made only
one more portrait of himself — before this he
had made many; and in it he makes himself
appear a stern and fateful man. It was after
Saskia 's death that he painted the ** Night
Watch," or more properly, "The Sortie."
Rembrandt's home, where he and Saskia
were so happy, is still to be seen on a quay
of the River Amstel. It is a house of brick and
cut stone, four stories high. The vestibule
used to have a flag-stone pavement covered
with fir-wood. There were also "black-
cushioned, Spanish chairs for those w^ho wait,"
and all about w^ere twenty-four busts and
paintings. There was an ante-chamber, very
large, with seven Spanish chairs covered with
green velvet, and a walnut table covered w^ith
"a Tournay cloth"; there was a mirror with
an ebony frame, and near by a marble wine-
cooler. Upon the wall of this salon were
thirty-nine pictures and most of them had
246 Pictures Every Child Should Know
beautiful frames. "There were religious
scenes, landscapes, architectural sketches,
works of Pinas, Brouwer, Lucas van Ley den,
and other Dutch masters; sixteen pictures by
Rembrandt; and costly paintings by Palma
Vecchio, Bassano, and Raphael."
In the next room was a real art museum,
containing splendid pictures, an oaken press
and other things which suggest that this was
the workroom where Rembrandt's etchings
were made and printed.
In the drawing-room was a huge mirror, a
great oaken table covered with a rich embroid-
ered cloth, "six chairs with blue coverings, a
bed with blue hangings, a cedar wardrobe, and a
chest of the same wood." The walls were
literally covered with pictures, among which
was a Raphael.
Above was a sort of museum and Rem-
brandt's studio. There was rare glass from
Venice, busts, sketches, paintings, cloths,
weapons, armour, plants, stuffed birds and
shells, fans, and books and globes. In short,
this was a most wonderful house and no other
interior can we reconstruct as we can this,
because no other such detailed inventory can
be found of a great man's effects as that from
which these notes are taken : a legal inventory
made in 1656, long after Saskia had died and
possibly at a time when Rembrandt wished to
close his doors forever and forget the scenes in
which he had been so happy.
Rcmhra}idt {Wui Riju) 247
Holland being truly a Protestant country,
its artists have given us no great Madonna
pictures, although they painted loving, happy
Dutch mothers and little babes, but on the