Part 1
# Bernini and other studies in the history of art ### By Norton, Richard
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BERNINI AND OTHER STUDIES
[Illustration: [Logo]]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO
[Illustration: PLATE I.]
BERNINI AND OTHER STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ART
BY RICHARD NORTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON
=NEW YORK= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN AND COMPANY
1914
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1914.
=Norwood Press= J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
The essays presented in the following pages are the product of no hasty thought. I am grateful to the kind friends who have encouraged their publication, and to the publishers for giving them so attractive a form.
The choice of illustrations has been difficult. It has seemed best, however, to reproduce in full the little-known sketches of Bernini showing the development, in his mind, of the design for the Piazza of St. Peter’s, and the sculptor’s models wrought by his own hands. For the rest I have thought that it would be more serviceable for the reader to have a few typical examples illustrating the main points of the text rather than a larger, and perhaps more confusing, selection of subjects from the almost inexhaustible wealth of available material. I am under deep obligation for the generous permission to include among the illustrations material in the Brandegee Collection (at Faulkner Farm, Brookline, Massachusetts) hitherto unpublished. The heliotype plates were prepared and printed under the direction of Mr. William C. Ramsay, of Boston.
RICHARD NORTON.
LONDON, July, 1914.
CONTENTS
BERNINI
I. AN ESTIMATE OF BERNINI 3 II. A COLLECTION OF SCULPTOR’S MODELS BY BERNINI 44 III. BERNINI’S DESIGNS FOR THE PIAZZA OF ST. PETER’S 50
ASPECTS OF THE ART OF SCULPTURE
I. THE ART OF PORTRAITURE, PARTICULARLY IN SCULPTURE 57 II. PHEIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO 93 III. A HEAD OF ATHENA FOUND AT CYRENE 135
GIORGIONE
I. PAINTINGS ATTRIBUTED TO GIORGIONE 155 II. THE TRUE GIORGIONE 172
INDEX 215
PLATES
PLATES I AND II. PORTRAITS OF BERNINI NUMBER I. Bernini. Pencil Drawing, by himself (p. 12); Brandegee Collection _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE II. Portrait, formerly thought to be of Velasquez, probably of Bernini (p. 12, footnote 3); Capitoline Gallery, Rome 4
PLATES III-X. WORKS OF BERNINI
III. Æneas and Anchises (p. 16); Borghese Collection, Rome 8 IV. David (p. 17); Borghese Collection 12 V. Proserpina and Pluto (p. 17); Borghese Collection 16 VI. Apollo and Daphne (p. 17); Borghese Collection 18 VII. Angel with the Crown of Thorns (p. 25); Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, Rome 22 VIII. Angel with a Scroll (p. 25); Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, Rome 24 IX. Saint Theresa (p. 30); Church of S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome 30 X. Louis XIV (p. 39); Versailles 38
PLATES XI-XXVII. SCULPTOR’S MODELS BY BERNINI; BRANDEGEE COLLECTION
XI. Female figure in relief, with helmet (p. 46, No. 1) 44 XII. Figure of Longinus, for St. Peter’s (p. 46, No. 2) 44 XIII. Putti, for the decoration of the piers in St. Peter’s (p. 47, Nos. 3 and 4) 44 XIV. Two saints, for the Ciborio in the Cappella del Sacramento in St. Peter’s (p. 47, Nos. 5, 7) 46 XV. Two saints, for the Ciborio in the Cappella del Sacramento in St. Peter’s (p. 47, Nos. 6, 8) 46 XVI. Bas-relief with half-figures (p. 47, No. 9) 46 XVII. Half figure of a Triton holding a woman on his shoulders (p. 47, No. 10) 46 XVIII. Study for the head of the St. Jerome in the Duomo of Siena (p. 47, No. 11) 46 XIX-XXIV. Models of Angels (pp. 47, 48, Nos. 12–21) 48 XXV. Standing male figure in high relief (p. 49, No. 22) 48 XXVI. Oval bas-relief of the Virgin (p. 49, No. 23) 48 XXVII. Standing female figure, and standing Angel (p. 49, Nos. 24, 25) 48
PLATES XXVIII-XL. BERNINI’S DESIGNS FOR THE PIAZZA OF ST. PETER’S; BRANDEGEE COLLECTION
XXVIII. Orb, surmounted by a cross; outline of a crucified figure (p. 51, Nos. 1, 2) 50 XXIX. Outline plan of St. Peter’s church correlated with a figure on a cross above lines suggesting the colonnades (p. 52, Nos. 3, 4) 50 XXX. More complete correlation of the crucified figure with St. Peter’s church (p. 52, Nos. 5, 6) 50 XXXI. Outline elevation of north half of the facade of St. Peter’s, with the colonnade (p. 52, No. 7) 52 XXXII. Sketches of the north colonnade (p. 53, No. 8) 52 XXXIII. More elaborate sketch of the north colonnade (p. 53, No. 9) 52 XXXIV. Outline sketch of the outer end of the north arm of the colonnade, treated as if in two stories (p. 53, No. 10) 52 XXXV. Interior of inner end of north arm of colonnade (p. 53, No. 11) 52 XXXVI. Plan and elevation of the Cortile di S. Damaso (p. 53, No. 12) 54 XXXVII. Façade of St. Peter’s, with both colonnades treated as if in two stories (p. 53, No. 13) 54 XXXVIII. View looking east from the front of St. Peter’s (p. 54, No. 14) 54 XXXIX. The Borgo, looking toward St. Peter’s (p. 54, No. 15) 54 XL. Correlation of the Piazza with the Orb (p. 54, No. 16) 54
PLATES XLI-LI. PORTRAITS
XLI. Sheik-el-Beled, statue of wood, Fourth Dynasty (p. 57); Boulak Museum, Cairo 58 XLII. Sheik-el-Beled, head of statue shown in plate XLI 60 XLIII. Portrait, so-called Scipio type, now identified as priest of Isis (p. 57); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 64 XLIV. Pericles (p. 78); British Museum 66 XLV. So-called Menander (p. 82); Brandegee Collection 72 XLVI. Periander (p. 82); Vatican Museum 74 XLVII. Unknown Roman, terra-cotta (p. 85); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 78 XLVIII. Unknown old man, Roman (p. 85); Brandegee Collection 84 XLIX. Antoninus Pius (p. 88); Brandegee Collection 86 L. Roman girl (p. 90); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 88 LI. Sabina? (p. 90); Brandegee Collection 90
PLATES LII-LIX. PHEIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
LII. Caryatid from the Erechtheum, Athens (p. 101); British Museum 96 LIII. Madonna and Child, by Michael Angelo (p. 116); Bruges 100 LIV. The Victor, by Michael Angelo (p. 116); National Museum, Florence 106 LV. Bacchus with Satyr, by Michael Angelo (p. 116); National Museum, Florence 112 LVI. Eros, by Michael Angelo (p. 118); South Kensington Museum 118 LVII. Ares and other Divinities (p. 118); Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens 124 LVIII. So-called Athena Medici (p. 119); École des Beaux-Arts, Paris 126 LIX. Madonna and Child, by Michael Angelo, unfinished (p. 131); Church of S. Lorenzo, Florence 130
PLATES LX, LXI. CYRENE ATHENA
LX. Profile view of head (p. 135); Cyrene 136 LXI. Front view of head 144
PLATES LXII-LXIX. PAINTINGS BY GIORGIONE
LXII. The Judgment of Solomon (p. 172); Kingston Lacy, England 162 LXIII. Adoration of the Magi, or Epiphany (p. 175); National Gallery, London 168 LXIV. Shepherd’s Offering (p. 180); in the Lord Allandale Collection, London 174 LXV. The Storm, gypsy woman and soldier in the foreground (p. 181); Giovanelli Palace, Venice 180 LXVI. The Three Philosophers (p. 181); Vienna 186 LXVII. Head of Christ bearing the Cross (p. 185); Gardner Collection, Boston 194 LXVIII. Portrait (p. 202); Wood Collection, Temple Newsam, England 202 LXIX. Madonna and Child (p. 204); Vienna 204
BERNINI
I. AN ESTIMATE OF BERNINI
During the last hundred years there has come a great change in the feeling of most people towards the art of the different epochs of the Renaissance. Whereas our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers held Carracci and Guido and others of the same time in high esteem, we are now taught that these later men are of little value or interest in comparison with the artists of the fifteenth century, and even the most halting and stuttering “Primitive” is held of more worth than the more able masters of the seventeenth century. This change is natural enough, but betokens a lack of true understanding of the purpose and powers of the fine arts.
The altered mental attitude in religious matters which renders most people incapable of feeling the appeal of the mystical fervour of the seventeenth century explains in a measure why the earlier work is preferred; and added to this is the effect of the development of archæological training which has given rise to an interest in the mere search for origins—a search that has done infinite harm in blinding the eyes of students to the fact that, for the world at large, it is far more important to see whither life is carrying us than from what slow, groping, and inexplicable protoplasm and haphazard chance it sprung. The teachers of our universities go on in their dull round, like Dervishes, repeating that the Parthenon was the most perfect expression of Greek art, and there are those who cannot see the beauty of the silver vases from Boscoreale because they choose to call them Roman. Without doubt there are many sound reasons for the purely archæological study of classic art, and recently a small but perceptive band of scholars has raised Roman art from the ignorant neglect into which it had fallen and given it the proper position due to any such able expression of great ideas; this justifies the hope that the worth of the later Italian schools will become once more manifest, not again to be forgotten.
The idea that the art of any civilized people rises by a steady and constantly more perfect progression to one glorious peak of perfection and then falls by rapid and recurring blunders to a waste of meaningless effort is, I believe, due to the too frequent mistake of considering the monuments of the arts as separate entities and as self-ordained rather than as indices of vital currents of thought and life. The English dictionary is not synonymous with English literature. Nor does the will-o’-the-wisp phrase “art for art’s sake” mean that each work of art is a unique and inexplicable phenomenon. Its true meaning is that the artist, be he poet or sculptor or musician—no matter what form his art takes—finds the only adequate expression of himself in the forms and under the governance of the laws of the art which he follows. By so far as he follows these laws is his work intelligible to other men; by so far as he finds new combinations for the forms and new adaptations of the laws to meet the new circumstances of ever changing life is he original and great. When Shakespeare or Keats wrote a sonnet the verses were not produced by them merely for the sake of using a certain complicated formula of fourteen lines to make certain statements, nor when Pheidias carved the Athena or Praxiteles the Hermes was it merely with the idea of reproducing the human form in stone.
[Illustration: PLATE II.]
Had such been the motive of these poets and sculptors their results would have had small value; but each one of them had something to say that he could best express in the form chosen, some feeling towards life he wished to share with others, and in this outgiving he steadily sought to perfect the form that held his idea. The care he lavished on the verse and marble so that the expression of this thought might be the completest possible and truest to his idea, the delight in making his chosen art conform to the laws of language or of gravity, while at the same time it held the thought as a nest holds an egg, _that_ was art for art’s sake, and a very different matter from mere technical dexterity.
All the arts are alike means of conveying ideas from brain to brain and from the past and forgotten generations to those not yet thought of. No one school ever told the whole truth, but only that part of it maybe which local circumstances enable it to see. Each of them, from the earliest which faded away before recorded time, to the latest which looks eagerly forward to to-morrow with the hope of new accomplishment and absorption in new truths discovered, is but as the searchlight casting its sharp-defined ray through the immeasurable dark. The flames of Priam’s pyre crimsoning the night which hung over the “topless towers” were not marked on the Argive hills, but the message was flashed hither and yon over the star-tracked sea, raising now hopes now fears, till at Mycenæ no answering flame was lit, but instead the young Phœnix was born.
And as no one school can answer all the questions, so no one single pundit can tell all the truth even of his own school. In each honest, unshamming workman there is something of truth, something others long ago thrilled to or that others yet to come may also feel, something that he knows with a clarity and conviction not to be equalled by any other. In a sense he does express his time, but neither the artist nor any man else is merely the product of his time, and the truly great ones go ahead of it, following the gleam of the divine spark which each man is born with to shelter in his heart as best he may. If it keep alight, by God’s grace, his life becomes in truth art for art’s sake, and he is one of the successful runners in the torch race across the great divide of life that separates the hopeless past from the hopeful future.
Of such there are many to spur on the weary and to guide the strayed back to the beacon path. In every man who has appealed to the masses, whose ears have rung and whose heart has swelled with the loud cries of “well done,” there is, be sure, something of the ultimate divine truth—some no mockery—some sincerity which heated in the fires of his soul and beaten with long pain and trouble on the anvil of his heart, shall be, if we can grasp it, a treasure undiminishing so long as we have breath to live.
Such an one was Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, whose life was almost coterminous with the seventeenth century (1598–1680). Honoured during life by three courts, and at that time court patronage was a very different thing to what it is now, he has of late been treated with a disregard which is unjustified, and has been blamed for faults which were not his. These false judgments can be traced back to the envy of some of his contemporaries, who on the one hand accused him of ignorance of the mechanics of his art and of stupidity of design, and on the other, oftentimes, did their best to copy him. But it gives us pause when we consider that notwithstanding the forces of jealousy backed by powerful influence that were brought to bear on him he remained in the eyes of artistic Italy during his sixty and more working years the “Michael Angelo of the seicento.” And this estimate of him, if we lay aside preconceived notions and formulas handed down to us by our parents, and look at his work with our own eyes and study it in the light of our own knowledge, will turn out to be the right one. Only the rash and heedless dare say of one who acquired such admiration in his own day that his work was poor and unworthy. And yet this is what is said. His style is said to be extravagant and artificial and his violent material effects are said to show that he was unable to express thought. Even the group of Apollo and Daphne is held to exhibit his ignorance of the proper domain of sculpture. It seems to me more likely that the judgment of the artists and critics of the seventeenth century is apt to be the correct one.
What would be artificial in an artist to-day was not so in Bernini, but was, if we could see it and free our hearts from the bonds of tradition, the most honest and simplest expression of a genius who had a new message for those who would take the trouble to understand. Frequently his work is criticised for not conforming to the “severe laws” of good sculpture and in this criticism lies the common fallacy of letting personal taste usurp the place of critical judgment. There are, of course, laws of gravity, and of stress or strain to which a sculptor must conform because they are in the nature of the material he uses, just as there are optical laws which the painter should know; but there are no laws to fix what the artist may or may not represent or the forms which he should give to his representations. Personal taste is very well in its place, but it is not criticism; and severe laws are good training for our powers, but dependence on them leads to stagnation and not to discovery. Because the stage-coach follows the old gray road is it artificial of the aeroplane to soar through the trackless ether? Probably most critics, when they speak of severe laws as fixed and irrevocable, have in mind those followed by the Greeks of the fifth century B.C.—surely of no later time, for what of the violent material effects of Pergamon? But suppose portraits of the present-day business kings were carved according to the one-time valid classic laws? Strangely unlike the subject would such portraits be!
There is nothing ultimately right in severity nor ultimately wrong in violence. The money-changers were not led from the temple by a ribbon round their necks. The pioneer and path breaker must be violent. This was Bernini’s work and purpose, and it is no more reasonable to blame him for the insincerity and stupidity of his followers than to blame Columbus for lynch law. As of many another, Bernini’s fame has been dimmed by the follies and shams of his would-be imitators. Many tried to imitate and surpass him, but it was not to be done. He had the quality of genius which is more than the power of taking infinite pains. That his pupils had, but they merely exaggerated the form of the outer husk of his work till it lost all semblance of truth and became nothing but untruth and error. In him was the divine spark, the light of which showed new worlds for sculpture to work in and the heat of which moulded his material into the eternal forms of beauty.
[Illustration: PLATE III.]
The study of Bernini is established on very strong foundations, and the misinterpretation of his aims is inexcusable; for we have sure records of every kind concerning him. From his surprising youth to his busy old age we can trace his progress and the development of his powers. Of all his numerous works scarcely one is lost, and such as have disappeared are of no importance whatever in comparison with what remains. The full account of his life was written by two contemporaries, one of them his son, and this is amplified by many letters and other papers—accounts of payments for his work, stories of his doings, plans for work sometimes never undertaken and other times finally accomplished by himself or his pupils, that have been turned up into the light after long sleep in Italian archives.[1] It is all before us, and each chapter of his life can be recalled from the Elysian fields. We grow eager with the same hopes, we feel despondent at the same broken faith and pledges, we grow interested in the same companionships, we rest after the same magnificent accomplishments, and to the end we are keen in search of new worlds to open up.
Even the look of him we know; what the appearance was as he moved among the Popes and Kings, the Cardinals and Princes of Europe. What it was for a man they saw we too can see. What it was of a heart he felt dragging him on with engine throbs we can guess when our amazed eyes rest on the Saint Theresa, the bust of Louis XIV, or the throne in St. Peter’s. A strongly built, dark man, his thick hair whitening in old age, but the quick eye never losing its brilliancy and piercing glance. Of simple fashion in dress, as the pictures and drawings by himself and others show him, for all his love of rich stuffs and floating draperies. A ready and pleasant wit made him the best of company, though at times withdrawn into himself by some mystical absorption. For just as the great religious leaders, so the great artists are at times lifted by some ecstasy away from actual surrounding fact and lost in worlds only visible to their inner eye, and though visible never to be told of. At other times his spirits broke forth in irrepressible gaiety which though it might form itself as satire was never malevolent. Generous to a fault, and always ready to lift up a friend, he was implacable towards his enemies, and rightly showed them no mercy. He had the strength to be a good hater,—not feebly excusing hypocrisy and meanness because the hypocrite was weak or knew no better, but hating, not the poor miserable individual, but his qualities, and, to the best of his own power, destroying them. Proud and self-confident, but willing to answer questions or to explain what might seem faults. A lonely man; one with many acquaintances but few friends. Too sincere not to be shocked by the heartless brutishness of the woman he loved, too honest a workman not to be hurt by the attacks of envy, but never losing heart, always following his ideal and seeking to eternize the beautiful visions of his bright soul.
There are many portraits of him, some done with pencil or pen or graver, others more elaborate oil paintings. They are the work of his friends, or done by himself, and show him at various periods of life from young manhood to old age. Naturally they vary in many ways, but the variance is for the most part in the details of the outer shell of the man. The thick dark locks of the youth give place to the thin gray hairs of the old man; the full cheeks grow sunken and wrinkles frame the piercing eyes; but in all the portraits certain characteristics remain constant. A pencil drawing in the Galleria Nazionale in Rome is the best of the youthful portraits.[2] It is by himself, done when he was some twenty years old. It shows a finely shaped head with thick, waving hair. The face is strongly modelled, and all the features noticeable; the nose large and slightly bent, the chin square and strong. Lips full and sensitive, but vigorous. Most noticeable of all are the eyes, large and dark, set rather deeply under heavy brows, looking straightly and sadly but imperturbably on the world. A face of power yet of sweetness. A man to ask after and to watch what he will do in this world. Rather older we see him in two drawings in the private collection of Prince Chigi in Rome.[3] Life was testing him severely we know, but the eyes are still steady, are still bright with the inner light that was leading him on, and the mouth is still sweet and undrawn.
Of about the same time, or a little later maybe, is the oil portrait supposed to be by himself (though for this there is little proof), in the Uffizi.[4] No change yet in the character except in a strengthening and making permanent the good qualities of his youth. The man has found himself. Many years go by before we again see him face to face.