Part 3

But even in the earliest efforts of infancy, there is a certain amount of inherited gift. First of all, therefore, one should look at a specimen of such art as Italians had before them when they first began to paint for themselves. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the Goths, the centre of civilisation shifted to the capital of the Eastern Church, Byzantium (Constantinople). The characteristics of Byzantine art may be seen in a Greek picture (594). The history of early Italian art is the history of the effort to escape from the swaddling clothes of this rigid Byzantine School. The effort was of two kinds: first the painters had to see nature truly, instead of contenting themselves with fixed symbols--art had to become "natural," instead of "conventional." Secondly, having learned to see truly, they had to learn how to give a true resemblance of what they saw; how to exhibit things in relief, in perspective, and in illumination. In _relief_: that is, they had to learn to show one thing as standing out from another; in _perspective_: that is, to show things as they really look, instead of as we infer they are; in _illumination_: that is, to show things in the colours they assume under such and such lights. The first distinct advance was made by Cimabue and Giotto at Florence, but contemporaneous with them was the similar work of Duccio and his successors at Siena, whose pictures should be studied in this connection. Various stages in the advance will be pointed out under the pictures themselves; and the student of art will perhaps find the same kind of pleasure in tracing the painter's progress as grown-up people feel in watching the gradual development of children.

But there is another kind of interest also. Wordsworth says that children are the best philosophers; and in the case of art at any rate there is some truth in what he says, for "this is a general law, that supposing the intellect of the workman the same, the more imitatively complete his art, the less he will mean by it; and the ruder the symbol, the deeper is its intention" (Ruskin's _Lectures on Art_, § 19). The more complete his powers of imitation become, the more intellectual interest he takes in the expression, and the less therefore in the thing meant. What then is the meaning of these early pictures? To answer this question, we must go back to consider what it was that gave the original impulse to the revival of art in Italy. To this revival two circumstances contributed. First, no school of painting can exist until society is comparatively rich, until there is wealth enough to support a class of men with leisure to produce beautiful things. Such an increase of wealth took place at Florence in the thirteenth century: the gay and courteous life of the Florentines at that time was ready for the adornment of art. The particular direction which art took was due to the religious revival, headed by St. Francis and St. Dominic, which occurred at the same time. Churches were everywhere built, and on the church walls frescoes were wanted, alike to satisfy the growing sense of beauty and to assist in teaching Christian doctrine. These early pictures are thus to be considered as a kind of painted preaching. The story of Cimabue's great picture (see No. 565) well illustrates the double origin of the revival of art. It was to its place above the altar in the great Dominican church of Sta. Maria Novella at Florence that the picture was carried in triumphal procession; whilst the fact that a whole city should thus have turned out to rejoice over the completion of a picture, proves "the widespread sensibility of the Florentines to things of beauty, and shows the sympathy which, emanating from the people, was destined to inspire and brace the artist for his work" (Symonds: _Renaissance_, iii. 137).[15] The history of Giotto is no less significant. It was for the walls of the church of St. Francis at Assisi that his greatest work was done. It was there that he at once pondered over the meaning of the Christian faith (with what result is shown by Ruskin in _Fors Clavigera_ and elsewhere), and learned the secret of giving the resemblance of the objects of that faith in painting. Thus, then, we arrive at the second source of interest in these old pictures of Florence--rude and foolish as they sometimes seem. "Those were noble days for the painter, when the whole belief of Christendom, grasped by his own faith, and firmly rooted in the faith of the people round him, as yet unimpaired by alien emanations from the world of classic culture, had to be set forth for the first time in art. His work was then a Bible, a compendium of grave divinity and human history, a book embracing all things needful for the spiritual and civil life of man. He spoke to men who could not read, for whom there were no printed pages, but whose hearts received his teaching through the eye. Thus painting was not then what it is now, a decoration of existence, but a potent and efficient agent in the education of the race" (_ibid._ p. 143). The message which these painters had to deliver was painted on the walls of churches or civic buildings; and it is only there--at Assisi, and Padua, and Florence, and Siena--that they can be properly read. But from such scraps and fragments as are here preserved, one may learn, as it were, the alphabet, and catch the necessary point of view.

But why, it may be asked, did painting come to its new birth first at Florence, rather than elsewhere in Italy? The first answer is that painting thus arose at Florence because it was there that a new style of building at this time arose. The painters were wanted, as we have seen, to decorate the churches, and in those days there was no sharp distinction between the arts. Not only were architects sculptors, but they were often painters and goldsmiths as well. Giotto and Orcagna are instances of this union of the arts. But why did the new style of building arise specially in Florence? The answer to this is twofold: first, the Florentines inherited the artistic gifts and faculties of the Etruscan (Tuscan) race. Even in late Florentine pictures, pure Etruscan design will often be found surviving (see 586). Secondly, in the middle of the thirteenth century new art impulse came from the North in the shape of a northern builder, who, after building Assisi, visited Florence and instructed Arnolfo in Gothic, as opposed to Greek architecture. Thus there met the two principles of art--the Norman (or Lombard), vigorous and savage; the Greek (or Byzantine), contemplative but sterile. The new spirit in Florence "adopts what is best in each, and gives to what it adopts a new energy of its own, ... collects and animates the Norman and Byzantine tradition, and forms out of the perfected worship and work of both, the honest Christian faith and vital craftsmanship of the world.... Central stood Etruscan Florence: agricultural in occupation, religious in thought, she directed the industry of the Northman into the arts of peace; kindled the dreams of the Byzantine with the fire of charity. Child of her peace, and exponent of her passion, her Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind of the meaning of the Birth of Christ" (_Ariadne Florentina_, ch. ii.; _Mornings in Florence_, ii. 44, 45).

--> _In the left-hand corner of the Vestibule will be found a very remarkable series of archaic Greek portraits dating from the second or third century A.D. (Nos. 1260-1270)._

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The architecture of the Entrance Hall and Vestibule is worth some attention, for here is the finest collection of marbles in London. Many distant parts of the world have contributed to it. The Alps, from a steep face of mountain 2000 feet high on the Simplon Pass, send the two massive square pillars of light green "cipollino" which form the approach to the Vestibule from the Square. Their carved capitals are of alabaster from Derbyshire, whilst the bases on which they stand are of Corrennie granite from near Aberdeen. The square blocks of bluish gray beneath the upper columns come from New Zealand. Ascending the stone steps, the visitor should notice the side walls, built up of squares of "giallo antico," which was brought from the quarry at Simittu, in the territory of Tunis. It had long been known that Rome was full of the beautiful "giallo antico," sometimes yellow, sometimes rosy in colour, but always of exquisite texture and even to work. It had come from the province of Africa; and the quarry was rediscovered by a Belgian engineer working on the railway then being made from Tunis to the Algerian frontier. He observed at Simittu a half-consumed mountain with gaps clearly marked, from which the last monoliths had been cut, and the work of the Romans was presently resumed by a Belgian Company. No more beautiful specimen of the "giallo antico" similar to that used in Augustan Rome could be desired than slabs in the entrance to the National Gallery. The cornice above the "giallo antico" walls is of "pavonazzetto" from the Apennines, near Pisa, and the same marble forms the base of the red columns. These splendid columns come from quarries near Chenouah, just west of Algiers, which were first opened by the French some years ago. Red Etruscan is the unmeaning trade name of this jasper-like stone, which is also used for door frames in many of the new rooms with very sumptuous effect.

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FOOTNOTES:

[15] My references to this book are to the new edition of 1897.

THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

"This is the way people look when they feel this or that--when they have this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then--whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly--_that_ the Florentine School lived to discern and show; _that_ they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth--the open expression of the living human soul" (RUSKIN: _Two Paths_, § 21).

Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue.

ROBERT BROWNING: _Pictor Ignotus_.

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts;--the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last." The reason for this faithfulness in the record of art is twofold. The art of any nation can only be great "by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race;" and secondly, "art is always instinctive, and the honesty or pretence of it therefore open to the day" (_St. Mark's Rest_, Preface). It has been seen from the remarks already made how Florentine art in its infancy was thus in a certain sense a record of the times out of which it sprang. In the later pictures, we may trace some of the developments which characterised the inner history of Florence in succeeding stages. The first thing that will strike any one who takes a general look at the early Florentine pictures and then at the later, is the fact that easel pictures have now superseded fragments of fresco and altar-pieces. Here at once we see reflected two features of the time of the Renaissance. Pictures were no longer wanted merely for church decoration and Scripture teaching; there was a growing taste for beautiful things as household possessions. And then also the influence of the church itself was declining; the exclusive place hitherto occupied by religion as a motive for art was being superseded by the revival of classical learning. Benozzo Gozzoli paints the Rape of Helen, Botticelli paints Mars and Venus, Piero di Cosimo paints the Death of Procris, and Pollajuolo the story of Apollo and Daphne. The Renaissance was, however, "a new birth" in another way than this; it opened men's eyes not only to the learning of the ancient world, but to the beauties of the world in which they themselves lived. In previous times the burden of serious and thoughtful minds had been, "The world is very evil, the times are waxing late;" the burden of the new song is, "The world is very beautiful." Thus we see the painters no longer confined to a fixed cycle of subjects represented with the traditional surroundings, but ranging at will over everything that they found beautiful or interesting around them. And above all they took to representing the noblest embodiment of life--the human form. Some attempts at portraiture may be perceived in the saints of the earliest pictures; but here we find professed portraits on every wall. This indeed was one of the chief glories of the Florentine School--"the open expression of the living human soul." This widening and secularising of art did not pass in Florence, as we know, without a protest; and here, too, history is painted on the walls. Some of the protest was silent, as Angelico's, who painted on through a later generation in the old spirit; some of it was vocal, in the fiery eloquence of Savonarola, whose influence may be seen in Botticelli's work (1034).

But the development went on, all protests notwithstanding; for as the life of every nation runs its appointed course, so does its art; and the second point of interest in studying a school of painting is to watch its successive periods of birth, growth, maturity, and decay. In no school is this development so completely marked as in the Florentine, which for this reason, as well as for its priority in time, and therefore influence on succeeding schools, takes precedence of all others. The _first_ period--covering roughly the fourteenth century, called the Giottesque, from its principal master--is that in which the thing told is of more importance than the manner of telling it, and in which the religious sentiment dominated the plastic faculty. In the _second_ period, covering roughly the fifteenth century, and called by the Italians the period of the _quattro-centisti_,[16] the artist, beginning as we have seen to look freely at the world around him, begins also to study deeply with a view to represent nature more exactly. One may see the new passion for the scientific study of the art in Paolo Uccello (583), who devoted himself to perspective; and in Pollajuolo (292), who first studied anatomy from the dead body. It is customary to group the Florentine artists of this scientific and realistic period under three heads, according to the main tendencies which they severally exhibit. The first group aimed especially at "action, movement, and the expression of intense passions." The artist who stands at the head of this group, Masaccio, is, unhappily, not represented in the National Gallery, but the descent from him is represented by Fra Filippo Lippi, Pesellino, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi. The second group aimed rather at "realistic probability, and correctness in hitting off the characteristics of individual things," and is represented by Cosimo Rosselli, Piero di Cosimo, Ghirlandajo, Andrea del Sarto, Francia Bigio. Thirdly, some of the Florentine School were directly influenced by the work of contemporary sculptors. Chief amongst this group are Pollajuolo, Verocchio, himself a sculptor, and Lorenzo di Credi. We come now to the _third_ stage in the Florentine, as in every other vital school of painting. This period witnesses the perfection of the technical processes of the art, and the attempt of the painter to "raise forms, imitated by the artists of the preceding period from nature, to ideal beauty, and to give to the representations of the sentiments and affections the utmost grace and energy." The great Florentine masters of this culminating period are Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The former is especially typical of this stage of development. "When a nation's culture has reached its culminating point, we see everywhere," says Morelli,[17] "in daily life as well as in literature and art, that _grace_[18] comes to be valued more than _character_. So it was in Italy during the closing decades of the fifteenth century and the opening ones of the sixteenth. To no artist was it given to express this feeling so fully as to the great Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most richly gifted man that mother Nature ever made. He was the first who tried to express the smile of inward happiness, the sweetness of the soul." But this culminating period of art already contained within it the germs of decay. The very perfection of the technical processes of painting caused in all, except painters of the highest mental gifts, a certain deadness and coldness, such as Browning makes Andrea del Sarto (1487-1531) be conscious of in his own works; the "faultless painter" as compared with others less technically perfect but more full of soul (see under 690). Moreover the very fascination of the great men, the pleasure in imitating their technical skill, led to decay. Grace soon passed into insipidity, and the dramatic energy of Michael Angelo into exaggerated violence. One mannerism led to another until the school of the "Eclectics" sought to unite the mannerisms of all, and Italian art, having run its course, became extinct.[19]

The growth and decay of painting described above is connected by Ruskin with a corresponding growth and decay in religion. He divides the course of mediæval art into two stages: the first stage (covering the first two periods above) "is that of the formation of conscience by the discovery of the true laws of social order and personal virtue, coupled with sincere effort to live by such laws as they are discovered. All the Arts advance steadily during this stage of national growth, and are lovely, even in their deficiencies, as the buds of flowers are lovely by their vital force, swift change, and continent beauty. The next stage is that in which the conscience is entirely formed, and the nation, finding it painful to live in obedience to the precepts it has discovered, looks about to discover, also, a compromise for obedience to them. In this condition of mind its first endeavour is nearly always to make its religion pompous, and please the gods by giving them gifts and entertainments, in which it may piously and pleasurably share itself; so that a magnificent display of the powers of art it has gained by sincerity, takes place for a few years, and is then followed by their extinction, rapid and complete exactly in the degree in which the nation resigns itself to hypocrisy. The works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Tintoret, belong to this period of compromise in the career of the greatest nation of the world; and are the most splendid efforts yet made by human creatures to maintain the dignity of states with beautiful colours, and defend the doctrines of theology with anatomical designs." It is easy to see how the progress in realism led to a decline in religion. "The greater the (painter's) powers became, the more (his) mind was absorbed in their attainment, and complacent in their display. The early arts of laying on bright colours smoothly, of burnishing golden ornaments, or tracing, leaf by leaf, the outlines of flowers, were not so difficult as that they should materially occupy the thoughts of the artist, or furnish foundation for his conceit; he learned these rudiments of his work without pain, and employed them without pride, his spirit being left free to express, so far as it was capable of them, the reaches of higher thought. But when accurate shade, and subtle colour, and perfect anatomy, and complicated perspective, became necessary to the work, the artist's whole energy was employed in learning the laws of these, and his whole pleasure consisted in exhibiting them. His life was devoted, not to the objects of art, but to the cunning of it; and the sciences of composition and light and shade were pursued as if there were abstract good in them;--as if, like astronomy or mathematics, they were ends in themselves, irrespective of anything to be effected by them. And without perception, on the part of any one, of the abyss to which all were hastening, a fatal change of aim took place throughout the whole world of art. In early times _art was employed for the display of religious facts_; now, _religious facts were employed for the display of art_. The transition, though imperceptible, was consummate; it involved the entire destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths of life to the paths of death" (_Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, pp. 8, 9, and _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 11. See also under No. 744).

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FOOTNOTES:

[16] It should be noted that the Italian terms _quattro-cento_ and _cinque-cento_ correspond with our _fifteenth_ (1400-1500) and _sixteenth_ (1500-1600) centuries respectively.

[17] _Italian Masters in German Galleries_, p. 124. My references to this work are to Mrs. Richter's translation, 1883; in the case of Morelli's _Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries in Rome_, they are to Miss Ffoulkes's translation, 1892.

[18] _Well said: but it remains to be asked, whether the "grace" sought is modest, or wanton: affectionate, or licentious_ (J. R.).

[19] _Not by its own natural course or decay; but by the political and moral ruin of the cities by whose virtue it had been taught, and in whose glory it had flourished. The analysis of the decline of religious faith quoted below does not enough regard the social and material mischief which accompanied that decline_ (J. R.)

THE SIENESE SCHOOL

"Since we are teachers to unlearned men, who know not how to read, of the marvels done by the power and strength of holy religion, ... and since no undertaking, however small, can have a beginning or an end without these three things,--that is, without the power to do, without knowledge, and without true love of the work; and since in God every perfection is eminently united; now, to the end that in this our calling, however unworthy it may be, we may have a good beginning and a good ending in all our works and deeds, we will earnestly ask the aid of the Divine grace, and commence by a dedication to the honour of the Name, and in the Name of the most Holy Trinity" (_Extract from the Statutes of the Painters' Guild of Siena_, 1355).