Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  *460. Leonardo. “La Vierge aux Rochers.” A replica of the picture in the National Gallery in London. Much faded, but probably genuine. Examine closely the rocks, the Madonna, and the Angel.

  395. Solario. Good portrait of Charles d’Amboise, a member of the great French family who will frequently crop up in connection with the Renaissance.

  461. Attributed to Leonardo, more probably Bernardino de’ Conti. Portrait of a Lady. Compare with the Mona Lisa, as exhibiting well the real advance in portraiture made by Leonardo.

  463. Attributed to Leonardo, but probably spurious; Bacchus, a fine youthful figure, begun as a St. John Baptist, and afterwards altered. Compare with the other St. John Baptist near it.

  *Beltraffio. The Madonna of the Casio family. A characteristic Leonardesque virgin, attended by St. John Baptist and the bleeding St. Sebastian. (A votive picture.) By her side kneel two members of the Casio family, one the poet of that name, crowned with laurel. Intermediate Renaissance treatment of the Madonna and donors.

  78 and 79. Good Franciscan saints, by Moretto.

  Between them, 298. Charming Girolamo dai Libri.

  We now come upon a magnificent series of works by Titian, in whom the Venetian School, ill-represented in its origin in the Salle des Primitifs, finds its culminating point.

  * *440. Titian. The Madonna with the Rabbit. This is one of a group of Titian’s Madonnas (several examples here) in which he endeavours to transform Bellini’s type (see the specimen in the Salle des Primitifs) into an ideal of the 16th century. The Madonna is here attended by St. Catherine of Alexandria, marked as a princess by her coronet and pearls. The child, bursting from her arms, plays with the rabbit. Once more a notion far-removed from primitive piety. Notice the background of Titian’s own country. Landscape is now beginning to struggle for recognition. Earlier art was all figures, first sacred, then also mythological.

  445. Titian. The Crown of Thorns. A powerful but very painful painting. The artist is chiefly occupied with anatomy and the presentation of writhing emotion. The spiritual is lost in muscular action.

  * *443. Titian. The Disciples at Emmaus. Treated in the contemporary Venetian manner. This is again a subject whose variations can be well traced in this gallery.

  451. Titian. Allegory of a husband who leaves for a campaign, commending his wife to Love and Chastity. Finely painted.

  450. Titian. Portrait of François Ier. Famous as having been painted without a sitting — the artist had never even seen the king. He took the face from a medal.

  448. Titian. Council of Trent. Very much to order.

  Above it, *Titian. Jupiter and Antiope. Charming Giorgionesque treatment of the pastoral nude. Compare with the Giorgione in the Salon Carré, in order to understand how deeply that great painter influenced his contemporaries.

  453. Titian. Fine portrait.

  439. Titian. Madonna with St. Stephen, St. Ambrose, and St. Maurice the soldier. Observe the divergence from the older method of painting the accompanying saints. Originally grouped on either side the Madonna, they are here transformed into the natural group called in Italian, a “santa conversazione.” Look at the stages of this process in the Salle des Primitifs and this Long Gallery.

  442. Titian. Another Holy Family. Interesting from the free mode of its treatment, in contrast with Bellini and earlier artists.

  * *455. Titian. Magnificent portrait.

  Above these are several excellent Bassanos, worthy of study. Compare together all these Venetian works (Bonifazio etc.), lordly products of a great aristocratic mercantile community; and with them, the Veroneses of the Salon Carré, where the type attains a characteristic development.

  Now return to the door by the Salon Carré and examine the R Wall.

  Poor Pinturicchio, and two inferior Peruginos.

  403. Lo Spagna. Nativity. Characteristic example of this scholar of Perugino and fellow-pupil of Raphael. Notice its Peruginesque treatment. Examine in detail and compare with the two other painters. As a Nativity, it is full of the conventional elements.

  189. Raffaellino del Garbo. Coronation of the Virgin, beheld from below by four attendant saints of, or connected with, the Vallombrosan order — St. Benedict, Saint Salvi, San Giovanni Gualberto, and San Bernardo degli Uberti. These were the patrons of Vallombrosa; and the picture comes from the Church of St. Salvi, at Florence.

  246. Manni. Baptism in Jordan. Observe, as usual, the attendant angels, though the simplicity of early treatment has wholly disappeared. The head-dresses are characteristic of the School of Perugino. Compare with Lo Spagna’s Nativity.

  Above it (496) Florentine Madonna, with St. Augustine, St. John Baptist, St. Antony and St. Francis. Observe their symbols. I do not always now call attention to these; but the more you observe them, the better you will understand each picture as you come to it.

  390. Luca Signorelli. Adoration of the Magi. A fine example of the mode of treatment of this excellent anatomical painter, the forerunner of Michael Angelo. It needs long looking into.

  289. Piero di Cosimo. Coronation of the Virgin, with St. Jerome, St. Francis, St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Bonaventura. Compare with Raffaelino del Garbo, close by, for the double scene, on earth and in heaven. Notice the crown which Louis refused, in order to embrace the monastic profession. This is a Franciscan picture; you will find it casts much light on assemblages of saints if you know for what order each picture was painted. The grouping always means something.

  16. Albertinelli. Madonna on a pedestal, with St. Jerome and St. Zenobius. Scenes from their legends in the background. A characteristic example of the Florentine Renaissance. The grouping is in the style then fast becoming fashionable. Compare with Lorenzo di Credi in the Salle des Primitifs.

  144. Pontormo. Visitation. Showing the older Renaissance tendencies. Compare with the Ghirlandajo, and note persistence of the arch in the background.

  *57. Fra Bartolommeo. Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena. This is a variant on the legend of the other St. Catherine — of Alexandria. The infant Christ is placing a ring on the holy nun’s finger. Around are attendant saints — Peter, Vincent, Stephen, etc. The composition is highly characteristic of the painter and his school.

  380. Andrea del Sarto. Holy Family. Exquisitely soft in outline and colour.

  372. Doubtful. Attributed to Raphael. Charming portrait of a young man.

  Beyond it,* two most delicate little pictures of St. George (a man) and St. Michael (an angel, winged) of Raphael’s very early period. Note the princess in the St. George; you will come upon her again. Simple and charming. Trace Raphael’s progress in this gallery, by means of Kugler.

  Beyond them, again, two portraits by Raphael, of which 373 is of doubtful authenticity.

  *366. Raphael. The Young St. John: a noble figure.

  * *367. Raphael. St. Margaret: issuing triumphant from the dragon which has swallowed her. A figure full of feeling and movement, and instinct with his later science. It was painted for François Ier, out of compliment to his sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre.

  All these Raphaels should be carefully studied. The great painter began with a certain Peruginesque stiffness, through which nevertheless his own native grace makes itself felt at once; he progressed rapidly in knowledge and skill at Florence and Rome, but showed a tendency in his last works towards the incipient faults of the later Renaissance. By following him here, in conjunction with Florence and Rome, you can gain an idea of the course of his development.

  The Second Compartment of the Long Gallery, which we now enter, though containing several works by Titian and other masters of the best period, is mainly devoted to painters of the later 16th and 17th century, when the decline in taste was rapid and progressive. Notice throughout the substitution of rhetorical gesture and affected composition for the simplicity of the early masters, or the dignity and truth of the High Renaissance. Begin again on the L wall, containing finer pictures than that opposite.

  441. Titian. Another Holy Family, w
ith St. Catherine. Both women here are Venetian ladies of high rank and of his own period. Observe, however, the persistence of the Madonna’s white head-covering. Also, the playfulness introduced in the treatment of St. Catherine’s palm of martyrdom, and the childish St. John with his lamb. These attributes would have been treated by earlier painters with reverence and solemnity. Titian transfers them into mere pretty accessories. Characteristic landscape background. (The female saint in this work is usually described as St. Agnes, because of the lamb: I think erroneously. The lamb is St. John’s, and the St. Catherine merely plays with it.)

  88. Calcar. Fine portrait of a young man.

  38. Attributed (very doubtfully) to Giorgione. Holy Family, with St. Sebastian, St. Catherine, and the donor, kneeling. A good example of the intermediate treatment of saints in groups of this character.

  Above it (92) Paolo Veronese. Esther and Ahasuerus. Treated in the lordly fashion of a Venetian pageant. Try now to understand this Venetian ideal in style and colour.

  91. Paolo Veronese. Similar treatment of Susanna and the Elders, a traditional religious theme, here distorted into a mere excuse for the nude, in which the Renaissance delighted.

  * *274. Palma Vecchio. Adoration of the Shepherds. A noble example of this great Venetian painter. Observe how he transforms the traditional accessories in the background, and employs them in the thorough Venetian spirit.

  Beyond it, several small Venetian pictures. Self-explanatory, but worthy of close attention; especially 94, a delicate Paolo Veronese, on a most unusual scale — a Venetian Dominican nun presented by her patroness, St. Catherine, and St. Joseph to the Madonna. Also, 93, by the same artist, St. George and St. Catherine presenting a Venetian gentleman to the Madonna and Child. These two saints were the male and female patrons of the Venetian territory; hence their frequency in Venetian pictures.

  99. The Disciples at Emmaus. Another characteristic transformation by Veronese of a traditional scene. The pretence of sacredness is very thin.

  98. Paolo Veronese. Calvary. Similarly treated.

  *335. Tintoretto. Susanna at the Bath. Admirable example of this artist’s bold and effective method. In him the Venetian School attains its last possible point before the decadence.

  Beneath it, two good Venetian portraits.

  336. Tintoretto. A characteristic Paradise (sketch for the great picture in the Doge’s Palace at Venice), whose various circles of saints and angels should be carefully studied. Gloomy glory.

  Above it, 17. A Venetian gentleman introduced to the Madonna by St. Francis and a sainted bishop, with St. Sebastian in the background. Doubtless, a votive picture in gratitude for the noble donor’s escape from the plague.

  Beyond these, we come chiefly upon Venetian pictures of the Decadence, among which the most noticeable are the Venetian views by Canaletto and Guardi, showing familiar aspects of the Salute, the Doge’s Palace, San Zaccaria, and other buildings.

  Further on, this compartment contains Spanish pictures, — an artificial arrangement not without some real justification, since in the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain, enriched by her American possessions, became, for a short period, the material and artistic inheritor of Italy, and accepted in full the mature fruits of the Italian Renaissance. At the same time, she imbued the developed arts she received from Italy with Spanish showiness and love of mere display, to the exclusion of deeper spiritual feeling. The most famous among the few Spanish pictures of the Louvre are: —

  552. * *Velasquez. Philip IV of Spain.

  Beneath it, *Murillo. One of his favourite Boy Beggars, killing fleas. A curious subject, excellently rendered.

  548. Ribera. Adoration of the Shepherds.

  540. Murillo. Birth of the Virgin, where the transformation of the traditional element is even more marked than in the Italian Renaissance. The colouring splendid. St. Anne is always seen in bed; other points you could notice in the enamels at Cluny. With Murillo, they become mere excuses for display of art-faculty.

  Further on, Murillo. The occupants of a poor monastery in Spain miraculously fed by angels, known as “La Cuisine des Anges.”

  I do not recommend more than a cursory examination of these fine Spanish works, which can only be properly understood by those who have visited Madrid and Seville. It will suffice to note their general characteristics, and the way in which they render traditional subjects. The best point of view for the “Cuisine des Anges,” is obtained from the seat nearly opposite, beneath the archway, when the splendid luminous qualities of this theatrical picture can be better appreciated. From this point also, many of the other Spanish pictures are well seen with an opera-glass. They are not intended for close examination.

  (The columns which separate these compartments have an interesting history. They first belonged to a classical temple in North Africa. They were brought thence by Louis XIV to support a baldacchino at St. Germain-des-Prés. Finally, the Revolution transferred them to the Louvre.)

  Return again, now, to the last archway, and begin once more on the R side, which contains for the most part tawdry works of the Baroque period, which should, however, be studied to some extent in illustration of the decadence of art in the later 16th century, and also as examples of further transformation of the traditional motives.

  53. Barocci. Madonna in Glory, with St. Antony and St. Lucy. A good example of the insipid style which took its name from this master.

  Below it, 309. Bagnacavallo. Circumcision, with twisted pillars, showing the decline in architectural taste. The crowded composition may be instructively compared with earlier and simpler examples of this subject; also, with Fra Bartolommeo, whose fine but complex arrangements rapidly resulted in such confused grouping.

  52. Barocci. Same scene. The tradition now entirely ignored, and an unpleasantly realistic, yet theatrical and mannered treatment, introduced.

  304. After Primaticcio. Mythological concert, exhibiting the taste of the School of Fontainebleau (the Italian artists of Raphael’s group, scholars of Giulio Romano, introduced into France by François Ier).

  349. Rosselli. Triumphant David, with the head of Goliath. Marking the advance of the histrionic tendency.

  A very cursory examination of the rest of the works on this wall will probably be sufficient. Look them over in an hour. The most celebrated are two by Salvator Rosa: 318, Guido Reni’s Ecce Homo, full of tawdry false sentiment; and Domenichino’s St. Cecilia (often copied), with the angel reduced to the futile decorative winged boy of the period. 324, Guido’s St. Sebastian, may be well compared with Perugino’s, as marking the decline which art had suffered. It is on works like these that the Spanish School largely based itself.

  This completes the Italian collection of the Louvre, to which the visitor should return again and again, until he feels he has entered somewhat into the spirit and tone of its various ages.

  Between the next two archways, we come to a small collection of works of the Early French School, too few of which unfortunately remain to us.

  Left Wall. Two portraits of François Ier, may be well compared with the Titian of the same king, as indicating the gulf which still separated France from the art-world of Italy. The hard, dry, wooden manner of these French works is strongly contrasted with the finished art of the Italian Renaissance. Recollect that these seemingly archaic portraits are painted by contemporaries of Raphael and Titian.

  Between them, good miniatures, by Nicolas Froment, of King René and his Queen.

  Above, 650. Admirable Dead Christ, with the Madonna, Magdalen, Joseph of Arimathea, etc. In the best style of the French School of the 15th century. Observe the action of the various personages: all are conventional.

  Beyond it, several good small pictures of the early French Renaissance which should be carefully examined. Fouquet’s portrait of Charles VII is a capital example of the older method.

  Above them, 875, characteristic 15th century Crucifixion, with Last Communion and Martyrdom of St. Denis. The executioner’s face is French a
ll over. (Scenes from the Passion have often in French art such side-scenes from lives of saints. Several at Cluny.) This picture has been employed as a basis for the restoration of the reliefs in the portals at St. Denis.

  Beyond again, portraits of the early Renaissance, exhibiting considerable advance in many cases.

  On the R wall are some works more distinctly characteristic of the school of art which grew up round Primaticcio and his scholars at Fontainebleau. Among them are a Diana hunting (D. de Poitiers again), and a Continence of Scipio. They reflect the style of Giulio Romano. Beneath the first, two good portraits, with patron saints (John and Peter). All the works in this compartment should be examined carefully, as showing the raw material upon which subsequent French art was developed.

  Beyond the next archway, we come to the pictures of the Flemish School, which deserve almost equal attention with the Italian, as individual works, but which, as of less interest in the general history of art, I shall treat more briefly. Begin here on the R side, for chronological order.

  Among the most noticeable pictures are Adam and Eve, unnumbered, good specimens of the frank, unidealised northern nude.

  595. An exquisite early Annunciation, the spirit of which should be compared with the early Italians. Notice the general similarity of accessories, combined with the divergence in spirit, the dwelling on detail, the Flemish love for effects of light and shade on brass-work, fabrics, glasses, etc. Notice that this charming picture gives us the early stage in the evolution of that type of art which culminates in the Gerard Dou in the Salon Carré.

  Beside it, an exquisitely tender Dead Christ. Remarkable for the finish in the background.

  The Quentin Matsys is not a worthy representative of the master.

  Beside it, a quaint and striking group of Votaries, listening to a sermon. Probably a mere excuse for portrait-painting. The character in the faces is essentially Flemish.

  Fine portrait of a young man with a pink, in a red cap.

  Triptych, with the Madonna and Child (who may be well compared with those of the Memling in the Salle Duchâtel). On the flaps, the donor and his wife, introduced by their patrons, St. John and St. Christopher.