A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools. National Gallery (Great Britain)

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ no matter of taste, but fact. It is an absolute fact that shadows are as much colours as lights are; and whoever represents them by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the light, represents them falsely." But in the two earlier periods above specified, the Venetians are further "separated from other schools by their contentment with tranquil cheerfulness of light; by their never wanting to be dazzled. None of their lights are flashing or blinding; they are soft, winning, precious; lights of pearl, not of lime: only, you know, on this condition they cannot have sunshine: their day is the day of Paradise; they need no candles, neither light of the sun, in their cities; and everything is seen clear, as through crystal, far or near. This holds to the end of the fifteenth century. Then they begin to see that this, beautiful as it may be, is still a make-believe light; that we do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in an atmosphere through which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. And then the chiaroscurists succeed in persuading them of the fact that there is mystery in the day as in the night, and show them how constantly to see truly, is to see dimly. And also they teach them the brilliancy of light, and the degree in which it is raised from the darkness; and instead of their sweet and pearly peace, tempt them to look for the strength of flame and coruscation of lightning." Three pictures may be noted in which the whole process may be traced. First in Bellini's "St. Jerome"25 (694) is the serene light of the Master of Peace. In another Bellini (726) is a first twilight effect – such as Titian afterwards developed into more solemn hues; whilst in No. 1130 is an example of the light far withdrawn and the coils of shade of Tintoret. (For Ruskin's general remarks on the Venetian School see Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii.; Guide to Venetian Academy; Oxford Lectures on Art, §§ 134, 173-177.)

      THE PADUAN SCHOOL

      "Padovani gran dottori" (the Paduans are great scholars)

Italian Proverb.

      Padua, more than any other Italian city, was the home of the classical Renaissance in painting. It was at Padua, that is to say, that the principles which governed classical art were first and most distinctly applied to painting. The founder of this learned Paduan school26 was Squarcione (1394-1474). He had travelled in Italy and Greece, and the school which he set up in Padua on his return – filled with models and casts from the antique – enjoyed in its day such a reputation that travelling princes and great lords used to honour it with their visits. It was the influence of ancient sculpture that gave the Paduan School its characteristics. Squarcione was pre-eminently a teacher of the learned science of linear perspective; and the study of antique sculpture led his pupils to define all their forms severely and sharply. "In truth," says Layard, "the peculiarity of this school consists in a style of conception and treatment more plastic than pictorial." This characteristic of the school is pointed out below under some of Mantegna's pictures, but is seen best of all in Gregorio Schiavone (see especially 630). A second mark of the classical learning of the school may be observed in the choice of antique embellishments, of bas-reliefs and festoons of fruits in the accessories. For a third and crowning characteristic of the school – the repose and self-control of classical art – the reader is referred to the remarks under Mantegna's pictures. With Mantegna the school of Padua reached its consummation. Crivelli's pictures are hung with those of the Paduan school, for he too is believed to have been a pupil of Squarcione. But after Mantegna the learning of Padua must be traced not in native painters, but in its influence on other schools.

      THE LATER ITALIAN SCHOOLS

      "The eclectic school endeavoured to unite opposite partialities and weaknesses. They trained themselves under masters of exaggeration, and tried to unite opposite exaggerations. That was impossible. They did not see that the only possible eclecticism had been already accomplished; – the eclecticism of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight" (Ruskin: Two Paths, § 59).

      The typical painters, with whom this chapter is concerned, are those of the "Eclectic School" of Bologna – the Carracci, Domenichino, Guido Reni; and Salvator Rosa, the Neapolitan painter of about the same period.

It may be noticed, in the first place, that the lower repute in which these Italian painters of the seventeenth century are now held is of comparatively recent date. Poussin, for instance, ranked Domenichino next to Raphael, and preferred the works of the Carracci to all others in Rome, except only Raphael's, and Sir Joshua Reynolds cited them as models of perfection. Why, then, is it that modern criticism stamps the later Italian Schools as schools of the decadence? To examine the pictures themselves and to compare them with earlier works is the best way of finding out; but a few general remarks may be found of assistance. The painting of the schools now under consideration was "not spontaneous art. It was art mechanically revived during a period of critical hesitancy and declining enthusiasms." It was largely produced at Bologna by men not eminently gifted for the arts. When Ludovico Carracci, for instance, went to Venice, the veteran Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. Moreover "the painting which emerged there at the close of the sixteenth century embodied religion and culture, both of a base alloy… Therefore, though the painters went on painting the old subjects, they painted all alike with frigid superficiality. Nothing new or vital, fanciful or imaginative, has been breathed into antique mythology. What has been added to religious expression is repellent, … extravagantly ideal in ecstatic Magdalens and Maries, extravagantly realistic in martyrdoms and torments, extravagantly harsh in dogmatic mysteries, extravagantly soft in sentimental tenderness and tearful piety… If we turn from the ideas of the late Italian painters to their execution, we shall find similar reasons for its failure to delight" (Symonds's Renaissance, vii. 232). For "all these old eclectic theories were based not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature (which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste, which it is impossible to do… All these specialities have their own charm in their own way; and there are times when the particular humour of each man is refreshing to us from its very distinctness; but the effort to add any other qualities to this refreshing one instantly takes away the distinctiveness" (Two Paths, § 58). It was not an attempt to unite the various characters of nature. On the contrary, "these painters, in selecting, omitted just those features which had given grace and character to their models. The substitution of generic types for portraiture, the avoidance of individuality, the contempt for what is simple and natural in details, deprived their work of attractiveness and suggestion. It is noticeable that they never painted flowers. While studying Titian's landscapes, they omitted the iris and the caper-blossom and the columbine, which star the grass beneath Ariadne's feet… They began the false system of depicting ideal foliage and ideal precipices – that is to say, trees which are not trees, and cliffs which cannot be distinguished from cork or stucco. In like manner, the cloths wherewith they clad their personages were not of brocade, or satin, or broadcloth, but of that empty lie called drapery … one monstrous nondescript stuff, differently dyed in dull or glaring colours, but always shoddy. Characteristic costumes have disappeared… After the same fashion furniture, utensils, houses, animals, birds, weapons, are idealised – stripped, that is to say, of what in these things is specific and vital"27 (Symonds, ibid. p. 233).

      With regard to the historical development of the declining art whose general characteristics we have been discussing, it is usual to group the painters under three heads – the Mannerists, the Eclectics, and the Naturalists. By the first of these are meant the painters in the several schools who succeeded the culminating masters and imitated their peculiarities. We have already noticed, under the Florentine School, how this "mannerism" set in, and all the other schools show a like process. Thus Giulio Romano shows the dramatic energy of Raphael and Michael Angelo passed into mannerism. Tiepolo is a "mannerised" Paolo Veronese, Baroccio a "mannerised" Correggio. Later on, however, and largely under the influence of the "counter-Reformation" – the renewed activity, that is, of the Roman church consequent on the Reformation,28– a reaction against the Mannerists set in. This reaction took two forms. The first was that of the Eclectic School founded СКАЧАТЬ