Part 6

An altar-piece, by MICHELE GIAMBONO, also in the Academy, painted during the first half of the fifteenth century, shows a more decided advance, and even anticipates some of the later excellences of the Venetian School. The drapery is in the long and easy lines which we see in the Tuscan pictures of the period, and what is especially significant, in view of the subsequent development of Venetian painting, the colouring is rich, deep, and transparent, and the flesh tints unusually soft and warm. This is signed by Giambono, and is one of his most important works, as well as the most complete, as it exists in its original state as an _ancona_ or altar-piece divided into compartments by canopies of joiners' work. It is unusual in form, inasmuch as the central panel, though slightly larger than the pair on either side, contains but a single figure. This figure was generally supposed to be the Saviour, but it has recently been pointed out that it is S. James the Great, the others being SS. John the Evangelist, Philip Benizi, Michael, and Louis of Toulouse. Some of Giambono's finest work was in mosaic, and the walls and roof of the Cappella de'Mascoli in S. Mark's may be regarded as the highest achievement in mosaic of the early Venetian School. While this species of decoration had given place to fresco painting elsewhere, it was here, in 1430, brought to a pitch of perfection by Giambono which entitles this work to a prominent place in the history of painting.

But the two chief pioneers of the early fifteenth century were Giovanni, or JOHANNES ALAMANUS, and ANTONIO DA MURANO. The former appears from his surname to have been of German origin, the latter belonged to the family of VIVARINI, and they used to work together on the same pictures. Two excellent examples of this combination are in the Academy at Venice. The one, dated 1440, is a Coronation of the Virgin, with many figures, including several boys, and numerous saints seated. In the heads of the saints we may trace the hand of Alamanus, in the Germanic type of countenance which recalls the style of Stephen of Cologne. A repetition of this, if it is not actually the original, is in S. Pantalone at Venice. The other picture, dated 1446, of enormous dimensions, represents the Virgin enthroned, beneath a canopy sustained by angels, with the four Fathers of the Church at her side. The colouring is fully as flowing and splendid as that of Giambono.

We do not recognise here, as Kugler rightly observes, the influence of the school of Giotto, but rather the types of the Germanic style gradually assuming a new character, possibly owing to the social condition of Venice itself. There was something perhaps in the nature of a rich commercial aristocracy of the middle ages calculated to encourage that species of art which offered the greatest splendour and elegance to the eye; and this also, if possible, in a portable form; thus preferring the domestic altar or the dedication picture to wall decorations in churches. The contemporary Flemish paintings, under similar conditions, exhibit analogous results. With regard to colour, the depth and transparency observable in the works of the old Venetian School had long been a distinguishing feature in the Byzantine paintings on wood, and may therefore be traceable to this source without assuming an influence on the part of Padua, or from the north through Giovanni Alamanus.

The two side panels of an altar-piece, representing severally SS. Peter and Jerome, and SS. Francis and Mark, now in the National Gallery (Nos. 768 and 1284), are ascribed to Antonio Vivarini alone, though the centre panel, the Virgin and Child, now in the Poldi Pezzoli collection at Milan is said to be the joint work of Alamanus and Antonio. However that may be, there is no longer any dispute about the fascinating Adoration of the Kings in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, formerly supposed to be the work of Gentile da Fabriano, but now catalogued as that of Antonio.

In 1450 the name of Alamanus disappears altogether, and that of BARTOLOMMEO VIVARINI, Antonio's younger brother, replaces it in an inscription upon the great altar-piece commissioned by Pope Nicholas V. in commemoration of Cardinal Albergati, now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna. The change is noticeable as introducing the Paduan influence of Squarcione, under whom Bartolommeo had studied, instead of the northern influence of Alamanus, into Antonio's workshop, and while this work of 1450, as might be supposed, bears a general resemblance to that of 1446, the change of partnership is at least perceptible, and had a determining influence on the development of the Venetian style.

A slightly earlier work of Bartolommeo alone is a Madonna and Child belonging to Sir Hugh Lane, signed and dated 1448. An altar-piece in the Venice Academy is dated 1464, a Madonna and Four Saints, in the Frari, 1482, and S. Barbara, in the Academy, 1490. Bartolommeo is supposed to have died in 1499.

ALVISE, or LUIGI, VIVARINI was the son of Antonio, and though he worked under him and his uncle Bartolommeo, as well as under Giovanni Bellini, the Paduan influence is apparent in his work. He was born in 1447, and his first dated work is an altar-piece at Montefiorentino, in 1475. In the Academy at Venice is a Madonna dated 1480, and at Naples a Madonna with SS. Francis and Bernard, 1485. Another Madonna at Vienna is dated 1489, and the large altar-piece in the Basilica at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin is assigned to about the same time. This is the first of his works in which the influence of Bellini rather than that of his family is traceable, while of the "Redentore" Madonna at Venice, of about five years later, Mr Bernhard Bernson says that, "As a composition no work of the kind by Giovanni Bellini even rivals it." In 1498 he had advanced so far as to be spoken of as anticipating Giorgione and Titian, in the effect of light and in the roundness and softness of the figures of the _Resurrection_, at Bragora. His last work, the altar-piece at the Frari, was completed after his death in 1504 by his pupil Basaiti. Bartolommeo Montagna, Jacopo da Valenza and Lorenzo Lotto were the chief of his other pupils.

In connection with the Vivarini must be mentioned CARLO CRIVELLI, who studied with Bartolommeo under Antonio and Squarcione. But there was something fierce and uncongenial about Crivelli which takes him out of the main body of Venetian painters, and seems to have given him more pride in being made a knight than in his pictorial achievements, remarkable as they were. In his ornamentation of every detail with gold and jewels he recalls the style of Antonio Vivarini, but while the master used it as accessory merely, Crivelli positively revelled in it. An inventory of the precious stones, ornaments, fruits and flowers, and other detached items in the great "Demidoff Altar-Piece" in the National Gallery would fill several pages. Of the eight examples in this gallery the earliest is probably the _Dead Christ_, presumably painted in 1472. The Demidoff altar-piece is dated 1476. The _Annunciation_ (No. 739), which may be considered his masterpiece, was ten years later. In 1490 Crivelli was knighted by Prince Ferdinand of Capua, and from that date onward he was careful to add to his signature the title _Miles_--as appears in our _Madonna and Child Enthroned_, with SS. Jerome and Sebastian--called the Madonna della Rondine:----

CAROLUS CRIVELLUS VENETUS MILES PINXIT. This was painted for the Odoni Chapel in S. Francesco at Matelica, the coat of arms of the family being painted on the step.

Our _Annunciation_ was executed for the convent of the Santissima Annunziata at Ascoli, and is dated 1486. Three coats of arms on the front of the step at the bottom of the picture are those of the Bishop of Ascoli, Pope Innocent VII., the reigning Pontiff, and the City of Ascoli. Between these are the words _Libertas Ecclesiastica_, in allusion to the charter of self-government given in 1482 by the Pope to the citizens of Ascoli. The patron saint of the city, S. Emidius, is represented as a youth kneeling beside the Archangel, holding in his hands a model of it. The Virgin is seen through the open door of a house, and in an open loggia above are peacocks and other birds. Amid all the rich detail, the significance of the group of figures at the top of a flight of steps must not be missed, amongst which a child and a poet are the only two who are represented as noticing the mystic event.

Another painter of the earlier half of the fourteenth century may be mentioned here, though as he was more famous as a medallist his influence on the main course of painting is not observable. VITTORE PISANO, called PISANELLO, was born in Verona before 1400, and died in 1455. Of the few pictures attributed to him we are fortunate in having two such beautiful examples as the _SS. Anthony and George_ and _The Vision of S. Eustace_ in the National Gallery. Both exhibit his two most noticeable characteristics, namely, the minute care and exquisite feeling that made him the most famous of medallists, and his wonderful drawing of animals. The latter, it is worth remarking, was attributed by a former owner to Albert Dürer. The other is signed "Pisanus"; in the frame are inserted casts of two of his medals, representing Leonello d'Este, his patron, and a profile of himself.

Another very considerable factor in the development of Venetian painting was the influence of GENTILE DA FABRIANO (_c._ 1360-1430), who settled in Venice in the latter part of his life, and there formed the closest intimacy with Antonio Vivarini. The remarkable _Adoration of the Kings_ in the Berlin Museum was until lately given to Gentile, though it is now catalogued as the work of Antonio. Of Gentile's education little is known, and of the numerous works which he executed at Fabriano, in Rome and in Venice very few have survived. From those that exist, however, we can form an estimate of his talents and of the difference between his earlier and later styles. To the first belong a fresco of the Madonna in the Cathedral at Orvieto, and the beautiful picture of the Madonna and saints which is now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin. Also the fine _Adoration of the Kings_, inscribed with his name and the date 1423, formerly in the sacristy of S. Trinità at Florence, and now in the Accademia. This, his masterpiece, is one of the finest conceptions of the subject as well as one of the most excellent productions of the schools descended from Giotto. Of his later period the _Coronation of the Virgin_ (called the _Quadro della Romita_) in the Brera gallery at Milan is one of the finest. In many respects his work is like that of Fra Angelico, and was aptly characterised by Michelangelo when he said that "Gentile's pictures were like his name." Apart from the influence of the Paduan School, which will next be noticed, the Venetian owed most to Gentile da Fabriano, if only as the master of Jacopo Bellini, whose son, Giovanni Bellini, may be regarded as the real head of the Venetian School as developed by his pupils Giorgione and Titian at the opening of the sixteenth century.

Whether or not Giotto left any actual pupils in Padua after completing the frescoes in the chapel of the arena there, it must be admitted that the older school of painting in Padua, which centred round the church containing the body of S. Anthony, was an offshoot of the Florentine, and that as Giotto was the great leader in Florence he must be considered the same here; though his followers differ so much from each other in style that beyond their indebtedness to their founder they have no distinctive feature in common. But with the opening of the fifteenth century one particular tendency was developed under the fostering influence of FRANCESCO SQUARCIONE, born in 1394, which affected in a very sensible degree the style of the great painters of the next generation in Venice. This, in a word, was the cult of the antique.

Among the Florentines, as we have seen, the study of form was chiefly pursued on the principle of direct reference to nature, the especial object in view being an imitation in two dimensions of the actual appearances and circumstances of life existing in three. In the Paduan School it now came to be very differently developed, namely, by the study of the masterpieces of antique sculpture, in which the common forms of nature were already raised to a high ideal of beauty. This school has consequently the merit, as Kugler points out, of applying the rich results of an earlier, long-forgotten excellence in art to modern practice. Of a real comprehension of the idealising principle of classic art there does not appear any trace; what the Paduans borrowed from the antique was limited primarily to mere outward beauty. Accordingly in the earliest examples we find the drapery treated according to the antique costume, and the general arrangement more resembling bas-relief than rounded groups. The accessories display in like manner a special attention to antique models, particularly in the architecture, and the frequent introduction of festoons of fruit; while the exaggerated sharpness in the marking of the forms due to the combined influence of the study of the antique and the naturalising tendency of the time, sometimes borders on excess.

The immediate cause of this almost sudden outbreak of the cult of the antique--whatever natural forces were behind it--was the visit of Squarcione to Greece, and Southern Italy, to collect specimens of the remains of ancient art. On his return to Padua his collection soon attracted a great number of pupils anxious to avail themselves of the advantages it offered; and by these pupils, who poured in from all parts of Italy, the manner of the school was afterwards spread throughout a great portion of the country. Squarcione himself is better known as a teacher than as an artist, the few of his remaining works being of no great importance. There is no example in the National Gallery, but of the work of his great pupil, Mantegna, we have as much, at any rate, as will serve to commemorate the master.

ANDREA MANTEGNA was born at Vicenza in 1431, and when no more than ten years old was inscribed in the guild of Padua as pupil and adopted son of Squarcione. As early as 1448 he had painted an altar-piece for Santa Sophia, now lost, and in 1452 the fresco in San Antonio. In 1455 he was engaged with Nicolo Pizzolo (Donatello's assistant), and others, on the six frescoes in the Eremitani Church at Padua. The whole of the left side of the chapel of SS. James and Christopher--the life of S. James--and the martyrdom of S. Christopher are his, and in these, his earliest remaining works, we already see the result of pedantic antiquarianism combined with his extraordinary individuality.

In 1460 he went to Mantua, where he remained for the greater part of his life, visiting Florence in 1466 and Rome in 1488.

Among his earlier works are the small _Adoration of the Kings_ in the Uffizi at Florence, the _Death of the Virgin_ and the _S. George_ in the Venice Academy. From 1484 to 1494 he was intermittently engaged on the nine great cartoons of _The Triumph of Cæsar_, which are now at Hampton Court, having been acquired by Charles I. with many other gems from the Duke of Mantua's collection. On the completion of these he painted the celebrated _Madonna della Vittoria_, now in the Louvre--a large altar-piece representing a Madonna surrounded by saints, with Francesco Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and his wife, kneeling at her feet. It is a dedication picture for a victory obtained over Charles VIII. of France in 1495. It is no less remarkable for its superb execution than for a softer treatment of the flesh than is usual in Mantegna's work. Two other pictures in the Louvre are, however, distinguished by similar qualities--the _Parnassus_, painted in 1497, and the _Triumph of Virtue_.

[Illustration: PLATE XI.--ANDREA MANTEGNA

THE MADONNA DELLA VITTORIA

_Louvre, Paris_]

In our own collection we have _The Agony in the Garden_, painted in 1459--to which I shall refer presently--two monochrome paintings (Nos. 1125 and 1145), the beautiful _Virgin and Child Enthroned_, with SS. Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist, which is comparable with the more famous Louvre _Madonna_, and, lastly, the _Triumph of Scipio_, in monochrome, painted for Francesco Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, completed in 1506, only a few months before the painter's death. In this we see that Mantegna's antiquarianism was not simply a youthful phase, but lasted till the very end of his career. The subject is the reception of the Phrygian mother of the gods among the recognised divinities of the Roman State, as is indicated on the plinth by the inscription. In the centre is Claudia Quinta about to kneel before the bust of the goddess. Behind is Scipio, and in the background are monuments to his family. The composition includes twenty-two figures. It is significant that the subject and its treatment are so entirely classic as only to be appreciated by references to Latin literature.

Another significance attaches to the _Agony in the Garden_ above mentioned, which is one of the very earliest, as the _Scipio_ is the very latest, of Mantegna's pictures, being painted before he left Padua to go to Mantua. In this we find that the original suggestion for the design appears to have been taken from a drawing in the sketch-book of his father-in-law, Jacopo Bellini, which is now in the British Museum; and the same design appears to have served Giovanni Bellini in the composition of the picture in our gallery (No. 726). This takes us back to Venice, and accounts for the Paduan influence traceable in the works of the Bellini family and their pupils.

JACOPO BELLINI, whose considerable talents have been somewhat obscured by the fame of his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, was originally a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, after whom he named his eldest son. He was working in Padua in the middle of the fifteenth century, in rivalry with Squarcione, and in 1453 his daughter Nicolosia married Andrea Mantegna. Thus it happened that both of his sons came under the influence of Mantegna, and evidently, too, of the sculptor Donatello, when working at Padua between 1450 and 1460.

Very few authentic pictures by Jacopo are known to us. _A Crucifixion_ (much repainted) was in the sacristy of the Episcopal Palace at Verona; and another, which recalls the treatment of his master, Gentile da Fabriano, at Lovere, near Bergamo. In the sketch-book above mentioned, the contents of which consist of sacred subjects, and studies from the antique, both in architecture and in costume, we see the peculiar tendency of the Paduan School expressed in the most complete and comprehensive manner. These drawings constitute the most remarkable link of connection between Mantegna and the sons of Jacopo Bellini, all three of whom must have studied from them. The book was inherited by Gentile on his mother's death, and bequeathed by him to his brother on condition that he should finish the picture of _S. Mark_, on which Gentile was engaged at the time of his death.

GIOVANNI BELLINI was born in 1428 or 1430 and lived to 1516. Albert Dürer, writing from Venice in 1506, says that "he is very old, but is still the best in painting."

The greater number of Bellini's pictures are to be found in the galleries and churches in Venice, all of those which are dated being the work of his old age. Of his earlier pictures we are fortunate in having two fine examples in the National Gallery, _Christ's Agony in the Garden_ (No. 726) and _The Blood of the Redeemer_ (No. 1233). In both of these the influence of his famous brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, is traceable,--the former being till lately attributed to him. Both Giovanni and Gentile worked in Padua, where Mantegna was established, in 1460 or thereabouts, and where another influence, that of the sculptor Donatello, must have had its effect on the young brothers. Similar in character, and even more beautiful in some respects, is the _Redeemer_, a single half figure in a landscape, recently acquired for the Louvre--the first authentic example of the master in that collection.

In 1464, Giovanni had returned to Venice, and it was some years before the severe Paduan influence melted before "the sensuous feeling of the true Venetian temperament." In 1475, however, the arrival of Antonello da Messina in Venice, bringing with him the practice of painting in oil, effected a revolution, in which Giovanni, if not one of the foremost, was certainly one of the most successful in adopting the new method. His later works, so far from showing any diminution of power, may be said to anticipate the Venetian style of the sixteenth century in the clearest manner. One of the chief, dated 1488, is the large altar-piece in the sacristy of S. Maria di Frari, a _Madonna Enthroned_ with two angels and four saints. The two little angels are of the utmost beauty; the one is playing on a lute, and listens with head inclined to hear whether the instrument is in tune; the other is blowing a pipe. The whole is perfectly finished and of a splendid effect of colour. To the year 1486 belongs a _Madonna Enthroned with Six Saints_, now in the Academy at Venice. The famous head of the Doge Loredano in the National Gallery must have been painted in or after 1501. In 1507, he completed the large picture of _S. Mark Preaching at Alexandria_, now in the Brera Gallery at Milan, begun by his brother Gentile. Within three years of his death, namely in 1513, he could produce such a masterwork as the altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo. His last work, the landscape in which was finished by Titian, is dated 1514. This is the famous _Bacchanal_ now in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland.

The influence of Bellini on the Venetian School was paramount, and his noble example helped more than anything else to develop the excellences observable in the works of Cimada Conegliano, Vincenzo Catena, Lorenzo Lotto, Palma Vecchio and Basaiti, to say nothing of his great pupils Titian and Giorgione. It is impossible to conjecture what course the genius of this younger generation would have taken without his guidance, but when we consider that in 1500 Bellini was seventy years old, and had stored within his mind the experience of his early association with his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna in Padua, the introduction of the use of oil paints by Antonello da Messina in 1475, since which date he had sedulously developed the new practice; when we also take into account the dignity and gravity of his own works, and the indication they afford of the man himself, it is not difficult to judge how much his pupils and successors owed to him.

The works of GENTILE BELLINI, the elder brother of Giovanni, are of less importance, but of considerable interest, especially in view of his journey to Constantinople in 1479 at the request of the Sultan, whose portrait he painted there in the following year. A replica

[Illustration: PLATE XII.--GIOVANNI BELLINI

THE DOGE LOREDANO

_National Gallery, London_]