Part 10

A revolt against the methods of the “Mannerists” was made by the Carracci when they opened their school of art at Bologna in 1589. These “Eclectics” (“Pickers and Choosers”) advocated a careful study of “the drawing of Rome, the Venetian shadow, the terrific force of Michelangelo’s manner, the natural truth of Titian, the pure and sovereign style of Correggio, the true symmetry of Raphael, the dignity and principle of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, together with a little of the grace of Parmigianino”! It is not surprising that they in their turn soon sank into mere academic mediocrity.

The Louvre is notoriously rich in representative examples of the “Eclectic” painters’ art. The name of Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619), the founder of this school at Bologna, is included in the official Catalogue, but neither of his two pictures is at present exhibited. Lodovico had as cousins, Agostino (1557?-1602) and Annibale (1560?-1609), who also worked in Rome. Six of Annibale Carracci’s fifteen pictures in this collection are now exhibited. The _Madonna of the Cherries_ (No. 1217) and the _Sleeping Child Jesus_ (No. 1218) are characteristic, while his huge canvas of _The Virgin appearing to St. Luke and St. Catherine_ (No. 1219) in every way exemplifies the art of this painter and his school. It is inscribed:

ANNIBAL CARACTIUS F. MDXCII.

Pictures of this type were much sought after and prized in the eighteenth century, when this one was seized by Napoleon in Italy, but to-day a higher standard of æsthetics has deservedly ruled them out of fashion. On the other hand, sufficient attention is not now paid to some of the landscape pictures which the “Eclectics” painted; Annibale’s _Fishing_ (No. 1233) and _Hunting_ (No. 1232) are worth the attention of the student. Antonio Carracci (1583-1618), a less-known member of this family, is the author of a large canvas depicting _The Deluge_ (No. 1235).

Guido Reni, after working under Denis Calvaert at Bologna, entered the school of the Carracci. This fitful sentimentalist indulged in idealised abstractions that were neither human nor divine, as may be seen from his _David and Goliath_ (No. 1439) and _St. Sebastian_ (No. 1450) on the one hand, and his _Ecce Homo_ (No. 1447) and _Mary Magdalene_ (No. 1448) on the other. Four of his large mythological paintings (Nos. 1453, 1454, 1455, 1457) show some technical ability.

Francesco Albani (1578-1660) was influenced by the Carracci and Guido Reni. The _Diana and Actaeon_ (No. 1111) may be selected out of his nine productions mentioned in the Catalogue. Domenichino (1581-1641), a pupil of the Carracci, the assistant of Annibale and a friend of Guido Reni in Rome, was a sentimentalist of the most pronounced order. His hard execution and unpleasant colouring can be judged in his _St. Cecilia_ (No. 1613),—her features are singularly ill-proportioned,—but nine of his other pictures do not take up any of the valuable wall space.

The self-taught artist and insipid Guercino (“The Squintling”) (1591-1666), after working in Rome, settled in 1642 at Bologna, where he died in affluent circumstances. His _Raising of Lazarus_ (No. 1139), the large _Patron Saints of Modena_ (No. 1143), together with a _Circe_ (No. 1147) and _The Painters Own Portrait_ (No. 1148), are now exhibited. These and such pictures as were painted by G. A. Donducci (1575-1655), G. F. Grimaldi (1606-1680), S. Cantarini (1612-1648), and G. M. Crespi (1665-1747), provoked a fresh reaction.

THE “NATURALISTS”

A natural reaction against the selective methods of the “Eclectics” gave rise to the “Naturalists,” who, headed by Michelangelo Caravaggio (1569-1609), made Naples the centre of their operations. The utterly repulsive picture entitled _The Death of the Virgin_ (No. 1121), by Caravaggio, is merely large. Neither _The Fortune Teller_ (No. 1122) nor the _Concert of Nine Musicians_ (No. 1123) can be compared with the really striking and well-painted _Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand-Master of Malta_ (No. 1124).

Salvator Rosa (1615-1675) is represented by _Tobias and the Angel_ (No. 1477) and a _Vision of Saul to Samuel_ (No. 1478). His _Landscape_ (No. 1480) shows that he delighted in “ideas of desolation, solitude and danger, impenetrable forests, rocky and storm-lashed shores, in lonely dells leading to dens and caverns of banditti, alpine ridges, trees blasted by lightning or sapped by time.” His _Battle_ (No. 1479) is a strange production.

Caravaggio was the master of Ribera (1588-1656), who is also called Spagnoletto, and is included in the Catalogue among the Spanish artists. This “Naturalist” school of Naples also included Luca Giordano (1632-1705), who lived in Spain at one period.

The aim of the “Naturalists” is displayed in the prominence they gave to all that was vulgar, coarse, and vile. With them art in Italy came to an ignominious end, although in technical accomplishment, in mere craftsmanship, they can hold their own with painters of much higher rank.

[Illustration: PLATE XVI.—JAN VAN EYCK

(1390?-1441)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 1986.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD AND THE CHANCELLOR ROLIN

(La Vierge au donateur)

An angel in a blue alb and with peacock-blue wings is placing an elaborate gold crown on the head of the Madonna, who holds the Infant Christ on her knee, and is seated towards the right of the composition. On the other side the Chancellor, kneeling at a _prie-Dieu_, and with his hands joined in adoration, wears a richly brocaded robe, and is seen in profile towards the right. The figures are grouped in a portico opening on to a flower-garden and a crenellated wall; in the distance is seen a seven-arched bridge, and beyond it a castled island.

Painted in oil on panel.

2 ft. 2 in. × 2 ft. 0½ in. (0·66 × 0·62.)]

THE EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

The early art of Flanders, unlike that of Italy, does not present itself at the Louvre, or indeed at any Gallery, in orderly sequence from the immature groping for artistic expression to masterly achievement. With the exception of the exquisite work of the late-fourteenth-century miniaturists, which forms a special branch of study, there is nothing to bridge the immense gulf that divides Melchior Broederlam, the earliest known Flemish painter, from the brothers Van Eyck, whose earliest known work, the wonderful Ghent polyptych of _The Adoration of the Lamb_, is, if not quite the starting-point, the noblest achievement of the Early Flemish school. The invention of oil-painting, in the sense of the word as it is applied to-day, with which the Van Eycks are credited, no doubt contributed largely towards this amazingly sudden progress; but their art also marks a new era in the conception of life and pictorial form. An ardent love of truth and nature takes the place of the earlier vague idealism. At the same time, the realism of the brothers Van Eyck and their followers, notwithstanding its insistence on literal truth in the representation of frequently ugly details, was kept in check by deep sentiment, love of splendid colour, and a great sense of style in composition. Details, even in the far-away distance, were certainly elaborated with minute precision, but they are never unduly obtrusive, and are invariably subordinated to the main motive.

JAN VAN EYCK

The earliest important Flemish painting in the Louvre is the famous _Virgin and Child with the Chancellor Rolin_ (No. 1986, Plate XVI.) by Jan van Eyck (_c._ 1390-1441), which was taken by order of Napoleon I. from the Collegiate Church of Autun in Burgundy. In a three-aisled colonnaded hall with stilted arches and pavement of geometrical inlay is seen Nicholas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy and Brabant, kneeling at a prayer-desk before the Virgin, on whose right knee is seated the Infant Saviour holding an orb in His left and raising His right hand in benediction. An angel with peacock-blue wings is floating above the Virgin and holding an elaborately wrought golden crown over her head. The exquisite detail of the river landscape with a view of Maastricht extending beyond the open colonnade, the sumptuous brocaded dresses, the carved capitals of columns and piers, and many other details painted with inimitable minute skill, help towards an ensemble of jewel-like splendour dimmed but not marred by the yellow varnish which covers the surface. The _Virgin with the Donor_ was formerly generally attributed to Hubert, but is most probably a late work by Jan van Eyck, painted perhaps about 1432.

THE SCHOOL OF TOURNAI

Neither Petrus Christus (1412?-1473), the only master who was directly influenced by Jan van Eyck, nor Robert Campin (1365-1444), who is now known to be identical with the so-called “Maître de Flémalle,” and who was the head of the important Tournai school, are represented at the Louvre. The official Catalogue ascribes to Campin’s greatest pupil, Rogier van der Weyden (_c._ 1400-1464), the two panels _The Virgin and Child_ (No. 2195), and _The Deposition from the Cross_ (No. 2196), of which at least the former is only a school version of an often repeated theme by the master, whilst the _Deposition_ is by no means an important example of his work. Rogier was born at Tournai, but went to Brussels after 1432, and practised in that city until his death in 1464. A journey to Italy in 1449 did not appreciably affect his art, which always retained an archaic flavour, especially in the rather tortured rendering of the nude. In this respect, and also in his utter disregard of beauty (except the beauty of rhythmic line), he compares unfavourably with the brothers Van Eyck, as may be clearly seen on comparing his work with Jan van Eyck’s _Virgin and Donor_. His occasional use of gold backgrounds, as in the _Virgin and Child_ (No. 2195), is another archaic trait.

The hand of a nameless contemporary and follower of Campin and Rogier van der Weyden, who is also represented at the Galleries of Vienna, Turin, and Antwerp, is to be recognised in the small panel of _The Annunciation_ (No. 2202), which was formerly attributed to the much later painter Lucas van Leyden, and has also been claimed to be only a copy of a picture by the Maître de Flémalle.

HANS MEMLINC

The influence of Rogier van der Weyden determined the entire course taken by the Flemish school until its decline with the introduction of those Italian Renaissance tendencies which only became a vital factor and led to the birth of a new Flemish art through the genius of Rubens. Again, Rogier’s chief pupil, Dierick Bouts (_c._ 1410-1475), is unrepresented at the Louvre. In the art of Hans Memlinc (_c._ 1430?-1494), who was the founder of the great school of Bruges, may be found clear traces of the influence of Rogier and of Bouts, although we have no certain knowledge as to that master’s actual pupilage. He may have been born at Mömlingen, near Aschaffenburg on the Main, and apparently had already risen to fame as a painter before 1467, the date of his great altarpiece at Dantzig. By that time he was settled at Bruges. Mr. W. H. J. Weale’s researches have shown that the legend, according to which Memlinc first came to Bruges as a wounded soldier and was nursed back to health at the Hospital of St. John, is not founded on fact. It is probable that Memlinc served his apprenticeship under some Cologne painter, but all theories regarding his early life must remain largely conjectural.

What is of real importance is that he introduced into the detailed realism of his precursors a note of pious fervour and tender idealism, which is the nearest approach in Northern art to the angelic sweetness of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole. Not without good reason has he been called “the Fra Angelico of the North.” Fromentin was certainly right in saying that “Van Eyck saw with his eyes, Memlinc begins to see with his soul.” It is this warmth of feeling that makes Memlinc the most lovable painter of the Flemish school, for he could neither rival the dramatic power and realistic truth of the Van Eycks, nor the firm draughtsmanship of Van der Weyden, nor Bouts’s skill in landscape painting. Nor did he take full advantage of the possibilities of the oil technique, his method remaining that of the tempera painters, although he availed himself of the new medium.

The earliest work by Memlinc in the great French national collection is the charming little diptych, painted about 1475, and representing on one leaf _The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine_ (No. 2027), and on the other _The Donor, John du Celier, presented by St. John_ (No. 2027A). In the first the Virgin is seen seated in a flowering meadow in front of a rose-covered trellis and supporting the Infant Christ, who bends forward to place the ring on the finger of St. Catherine on the left. Behind the saintly bride are St. Agnes and St. Cecilia; whilst the group on the right comprises St. Barbara, with St. Margaret and St. Lucy, all accompanied by their characteristic attributes. On the other leaf the Donor is seen kneeling, with hands joined in prayer, in front of St. John the Baptist, who is pointing to Our Lord. The landscape background shows, on the left, the Apocalyptic vision of St. John the Evangelist, and on the right, St. George fighting the Dragon. This leaf, after passing through the collection of Mr. Herz and Mr. Heath, was presented to the Louvre in 1895 by Mme. André, and was thus reunited with its companion, which had been bequeathed to the Gallery fourteen years earlier by M. E. Gatteaux. It is on the whole in an excellent state of preservation, although some of the accessories in the background are so thinly painted that they have almost disappeared.

MEMLINC’S “VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH DONORS”

About 1490 Memlinc must have painted the admirable _Virgin and Child, with Donors_ (No. 2026), which was commissioned by James Floreins, a member of the Bruges Merchant Grocers’ Guild, but subsequently found its way to Spain, whence it was taken to France by General d’Armagnac. The Donor, who is kneeling on the left, in front of his seven sons, is presented by St. James the Great, the same office being performed by St. Dominic for Floreins’s wife and her twelve daughters, on the opposite side. The scene is laid in a Romanesque church, with openings at either side, through which glimpses of the landscape beyond are obtained. The characterisation of all the faces, which bear a strong family likeness, is as admirable as the painting of the noble architecture. Remarkable, too, is the effect of perfect symmetry obtained in the arrangement of the two unequal groups through the simple device of placing the Virgin and Child more towards the less crowded side, although the canopy is in the exact middle of the panel. This altarpiece is certainly one of the most important works by Memlinc that are to be found outside Belgium.

The two little panels, _St. John the Baptist_ (No. 2024), and _St. Mary Magdalene_ (No. 2025), both standing in a landscape with small scenes from their respective legends, formed originally, with two further panels representing St. Christopher and St. Stephen, the shutters of a triptych. The centre part had disappeared before the wings, carefully sawn through the thickness of the panels so, as to separate the obverse from the reverse, came into the possession of Lucien Bonaparte, and afterwards of William II. of Holland. The two Saints now at the Louvre were purchased in 1851 for £469.

In 1908 the Louvre obtained, at the high price of £8000, the _Portrait of an Old Lady_ (Plate XVII.), to which attention was first drawn at the Bruges Exhibition in 1902, when it was shown by M. Nardus, from whom it passed into the hands of M. Kleinberger. Both the Paris portrait, which is drawn with exquisite precision but has apparently suffered from over-cleaning, and its companion, the portrait of this anonymous lady’s husband at the Berlin Museum, were until 1884 in the Meazzu collection in Milan.

The triptych (No. 2028) with (_a_) _The Resurrection_, (_b_) _The Ascension_, and (_c_) _The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, which was bought at Turin in 1860 for £540, and is officially considered to be of doubtful authenticity, is included by Mr. Weale in his catalogue of Memlinc’s works.

GERARD DAVID

The reconstruction and the rescuing from oblivion of the artistic personality of Gerard David, begun by Mr. Weale and completed by Freiherr von Bodenhausen, is one of the triumphs of the modern scientific method of criticism. The Louvre is fortunate in possessing two important examples from the brush of this master, who, born at Ouwater in Holland about 1460, was in his early studies influenced by Albert van Ouwater, but, after settling at Bruges in 1483, came under the spell of Van Eyck, Bouts, and above all of Memlinc, whom he succeeded as leader of the Bruges school. On his death in 1523, the supremacy of that school came to an end, and passed on to the city of Antwerp, which by that time had also superseded Bruges as a commercial centre. Gerard David was not Memlinc’s equal as regards intimate charm, but in his work is to be found a summing-up of all the achievement of the Flemish Quattrocento—“the last concentrated expression of the aims of all the great masters of that fertile age.”

[Illustration: PLATE XVII.—HANS MEMLINC

(1430?-1494)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No.—[4].—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY

She is seen in full face and at half-length, wearing the costume of the period; her hands are superposed; landscape background to the left, with a winding sandy path. A porphyry column to the right.

Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 2¼ in. × 1 ft. (0·36 × 0·30.)]

[4] This picture has not yet received an official number.

After having been successively attributed to Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Memlinc, and David’s pupil Ysenbrant, the _Marriage at Cana_ (No. 1957, Plate XVIII.) is now generally admitted to be designed and

## partly executed by Gerard David, although the panel shows unmistakable

evidence of being completed by another and less skilful hand. Mr. Weale has shown, on the strength of a certain document, that the picture may have been finished by Ysenbrant, but he has been unable to establish that the document quoted by him refers to this particular picture. There can be no doubt that David himself painted the figure of the Donor, kneeling on the left, a marvellous example of early portraiture, and the Donor’s son, the Christ, and the boy carrying the cake. Some of the other heads are almost wooden in their hardness. The head of the Dominican looking into the hall through an opening beyond which is to be seen the Place du Saint-Sang, at Bruges, is clearly an afterthought, and is introduced so clumsily that the wall and the page-boy with the cake-dish really leave no room for the friar’s body. There is a curious lack of spiritual cohesion in the picture—the majority of the figures look away from the Saviour as well as from the bride, although the significance of the moment is such as to demand a concentration of everybody’s attention on the Christ. The picture, of which there are several replicas, notably one at the Stockholm Museum by David’s pupil Ambrosius Benson, was until 1580 in the Chapel of the Saint-Sang at Bruges, and then in the collection of Louis XIV., from which it passed into the Louvre.

The triptych (No. 2202A) of the _Virgin and Child, with Two Angels_, in the centre, and _Two Donors presented by St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist_, on the wings, is officially catalogued as an anonymous picture of the Flemish sixteenth-century school, but is unquestionably an early work of Gerard David. It is interesting to note that the male Donor is the same as the Donor in the _Marriage at Cana_, though younger in years, and that the delightful and strangely Italian _putti_ on the capitals of the columns that flank the Virgin’s throne recur again, reversed, in David’s _Judgment of Cambyses_, at Bruges. The _Adam_ and _Eve_ on the outside of the shutters are inspired by the corresponding figures on the great Van Eyck altarpiece at Ghent. The Louvre triptych was bought at the Garriga sale in Madrid, in 1890, for £248.

HIERONYMUS BOSCH

Before passing on to the school founded at Antwerp by Quentin Matsys (_c._ 1466-1530), mention should be made of Hieronymus Bosch van Aeken (_c._ 1462-1516), who, a follower of Ouwater, has as much right to be counted among the masters of the Dutch as of the Flemish school. Of his life we know but little. His pictures reveal that realistic observation of everyday life which was to become the characteristic of the Dutch school; but, added to it, there is a tendency towards the grotesque which made him delight in subjects that gave him full scope for the invention of weird monsters, devils, and spectres, such as the demons in _The Damned_ (No. 1900), which is attributed to Bosch in the official Catalogue, but is, like its companion, _Heaven_, at the Lille Museum, the work of the unknown painter of the famous _Last Judgment_ at Dantzig, which has by various experts been given in turn to Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Memlinc. There is at the Louvre a drawing which corresponds to so remarkable a degree with the panel No. 1900, that it has long been held to be a study from the same hand. This drawing is, however, more probably an early study by the German master Martin Schöngauer after the Louvre panel. The picture was formerly in the Duchâtel collection, and was given to the Louvre by the Duc de la Tremoïlle.

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.—GERARD DAVID

(1460?-1523)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 1957.—THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

(Les Noces de Cana)

The scene takes place in a richly appointed chamber, which on the left side looks out on to the Place du Saint-Sang at Bruges. The Bride is seated on the farther side of the table; towards the left the Virgin bows her head in the direction of the Christ. In the left-hand corner of the composition kneels the Donor, wearing the costume of a Provost of the Company of the Holy Blood; on the right kneels the Female Donor. Guests and servants variously disposed complete the picture.

Painted in oil on panel.

3 ft. 2 in. × 4 ft. 2½ in. (0·96 × 1·28.)]

THE ANTWERP SCHOOL

Quentin Matsys, the painter of _The Banker and his Wife_ (No. 2029, Plate XIX.), of which numerous replicas and variants are known, some probably from the hand of his pupil Marinus van Roymerswaele, still owes his training to the primitives of his race, but heralds the new era which was to culminate in the art of Rubens, by passing from the earlier minute precision of detail to a certain breadth of style and boldness of brushwork, necessitated partly by the larger scale adopted for his figures. Neither _The Saviour Blessing_ (No. 2030) nor _The Virgin and Child_ (No. 2030A), both of which are catalogued under his name, can be accepted as authentic; but the interesting genre group of _The Banker and his Wife_ is not only fully signed and dated

QVENTIN MATSYS, SCHILDER, 1514,

but is unmistakably the work of his brush, although the woman’s face and hands appear to have been badly repainted. It was bought in 1806 at the low price of £72. The best version of the same subject is the one in the Sigmaringen Gallery. By Quentin Matsys is also, probably, the _Pietà_ (No. 2203), which is catalogued officially as “Flemish XVIth Century.” Quentin’s son Jan, who followed his father’s tradition and achieved considerable distinction, is the painter of the hideous _David and Bathsheba_ (No. 2030B), which bears the inscription

1562. IOANES MASSIIS PINGEBAT.