The true test of the good and beautiful;
First in my judgment ever stands that school."

- Velasquez. "What will Italy be when she has lost her masterpieces, as she has lost the art which produced them? To-day she is the land of paintings without any painters, the empty cradle of poets."—T. B. Aldrich.

THE beginning of Venetian art was Byzantine, and that influence is still apparent in the architecture of the city; but it is not necessary to go into that subject here, for this book deals exclusively with painting, and chiefly with its development in Venice from the time of the Vivarini until its decline after Tintoretto.

Under the general term of "Venetian Painting" will be included not only the painters who lived and worked in the city of Venice, but also many of the prominent artists of other places in North Italy, for some of the important works of these painters are to be seen at Venice.

It is a noteworthy fact that none of the most famous of the Venetian masters were born at Venice; consequently it is necessary to mention many of the artists belonging to the different local schools of North Italy, as well as those who received their instruction entirely at Venice. These schools of the surrounding mainland had a great influence on the art of Venice, but its strong naturalistic tendencies kept it from being invaded by that of the southern provinces.

The art of painting began at Venice somewhat later than at Florence, and it was not until the last half of the fourteenth century that the influence of Giotto in Padua commenced to rouse Venice to do and think for herself in art. The earliest known painters in Venice were Semitecolo, Lorenzo, and Stefano Venezio, who flourished about 1350 to 1380.

The sayings of Diego Velasquez, reported by Boschini, in curious Italian verse, thus translated by Dr. Donaldson.

xiv

The three chief epochs of Venetian art have thus been defined by Ruskin :—

"The first we may call the Vivarini epoch-bright, innocent, more or less elementary, entirely religious art, reaching from 1400 to 1480: the second (which we call the Carpaccian epoch), sometimes classic and mythic, as well as religious, 1480 to 1520; the third, supremely powerful art corrupted by taint of death, 1520 to 1600, which we will call the Tintoret epoch.

"Of course the lives of the painters run in and out across these limits; yet if you fasten these firmly in your mind80, 40, 80-you will find you have an immense advantage and easy grip of the whole history of Venetian art."

In the early part of the fifteenth century the painters in Venice still designed with great stiffness, and in the Gothic taste, but they produced even then many admirably coloured pictures. The leaders of the improved style were some painters of the small island of Murano, near Venice. The first known artists of this place were Quirico, Bernardino and Andrea da Murano, but the great forerunners of the true Venetian painting were the Vivarini. It is generally supposed that there were four persons who painted under this name: Antonio, Giovanni, Bartolommeo, and Alvise, also known as da Murano." These painters were influenced by the German and Paduan schools, and also by Gentile da Fabriano, who resided some time in Venice.

The chief contemporaries of the Vivarini were the Bellini their rivals, Jacobello del Fiore (fl. 1400-1440), his pupil Carlo Crivelli (f. 1468-1500), Negroponte (fl. 1450), and the Dominican friar, Domenico Veneziano (c. 1410–1461).

With

The real founders of the Venetian school, properly speaking, were the three Bellini, who likewise, but in a greater degree, were influenced by Gentile da Fabriano. the Bellini the pictorial art of Venice came like Athene, full arrayed in maturity of celestial girlhood, a sight for all men."

Jacopo Bellini, though a good painter, was excelled by his sons Gentile and Giovanni. These talented painters had many disciples, and influenced a great number of artists, both in Venice and on the mainland. In what is generally termed the school of Giovanni Bellini, more than twenty persons received instruction, though only a few of them were really taught by the master himself. There is some doubt

As these so-called pupils of Bellini and of Titian can more easily be designated by the Table" (see p. xxvi.), they will not be enumerated

here.

whether Titian and Palma Vecchio can truly be called his pupils, but they were certainly influenced by him, as was also Giorgione. It is doubtful whether Giorgione had any actual pupils; but he had great influence on Titian, Paris Bordone, Giovanni da Údine, Sebastiano del Piombo, and other prominent painters. The numerous artists who worked in Titian's studio were his assistants rather than his pupils, for Titian taught but little. Tintoretto is often called a pupil of Titian, though he was only a week in his atelier. Schiavone, Lotto, Paolo Veronese, Aliense, and Padovanino were influenced jointly by Titian and Giorgione.

As most of the painters who rose to fame and wealth in Venice were natives of the surrounding territory, it is difficult to draw any clearly marked line between them and those who worked on the mainland. The school of Venice retained its originality for a longer period than any other school of Italy, owing chiefly to the study of nature and certain favourable circumstances. During the last half of the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries, the Venetian school held the foremost place in general estimation, and collectors from all parts of Europe were eager to purchase specimens of the school. In the seventeenth century followed the age of the "mannerists" and the decline of art. The chief painters of this period, after Tintoretto, were Palma Giovane, Padovanino, Ricci, and Tiepolo, after whom came Canaletto, Longhi, and Guardi.

"In the sixteenth century painting was not looked upon with the estranging reverence paid to it now. It was almost as cheap as printing has become since, and almost as much employed." (Berenson.)

CHARACTERISTICS OF VENETIAN PAINTING.

"There Titian, Tintoret, and Giambellin,

And that strong master of a myriad hues,

The Veronese, like flowers with odours keen,

Shall smite your brain with splendours; they confuse
The soul that, wandering in their world, must lose

Count of their littleness, and cry that then

The gods we dream of walked the earth like men."
-J. A. Symonds.

The characteristics which, as a whole, impress a specific distinction on Venetian painting, though easily recognised, are not so easily analysed and defined. The Venetian school is acknowledged to be the first in colour, but it is often too

hastily assumed that its character was gay and joyous in consequence. On the contrary, the general style of Venetian altarpieces is grave, and it is remarkable that in expression no school in Italy is more serious. We do not find the smiling countenances of Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, or Raphael, but a pensive, almost pathetic look in Venetian holy families, and grave, sedate, and very dignified countenances in Venetian portraits.

Sir Joshua Reynolds justly characterized the mode of composition and execution peculiar to the Venetians as the decorative style. This involves a strange luxury of arcades, porticoes, balconies, and staircases, and of rich silks and draperies, which was somewhat detrimental to the ideality of the subject. It is quite true that the Venetians never attained the "holiness" and purity of certain Florentine artists, nor the sublimity of Michael Angelo; but they realized all the splendour and beauty of the sensible and material world, and thus completed pictorial art in another manifestation. The Venetians

were the greatest and most positive realists of the age, without sacrificing beauty of line, and at the same time they may be called idealists in colour at least. "The ideas which the Venetians convey to you are of noble, beautiful, and consistent things." (Ruskin.)

Many reasons have been given to account for the great superiority of the colouring in Venetian pictures, such as the influence of the surroundings, the colour of Venice itself, the bay and lagoons, and the constant intercourse of her people with the "gorgeous" Orient.

The speciality of the Venetians consists in seeing that "shadow is not absence of colour, but is, on the contrary, necessary to the full presence of colour; every colour in painting must be a shadow of some brighter colour, and a light to some darker one, all the while being a positive colour itself. And the great splendour of the Venetian school arises from their having seen and held from the beginning this great fact that shadow is as much colour as light, often Observe that this is no matter of taste, but

more.

fact." (Ruskin.)

Colour certainly had some effect upon the Venetian painters in their choice of religious subjects. "They were especially fond of cardinals, because of their red hats, and they sunburnt all their hermits into splendid russet brown." (Ruskin.) They were worldly in these representations, for to them religious faith was not mystical or visionary, but practical. In Venice there was no conflict between art and religion, no reaction against a previous excessive piety.

There was a constant restraint of papal power, and a subordination of the priestly to the lay element. Ecclesiastics were carefully excluded from her councils, and in her cloisters and monasteries there was a freedom unknown to similar establishments on the mainland.

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and other Venetian artists were men of the world, men of pleasure, wealthy, urbane, independent, but never mystics or philosophers. They did not believe that the Madonna really sat on a pedestal, as represented, or that St. George, St. Francis, or other saints stood thus beside her. There were few places so frequently connected with religious legends as Venice; the city was founded under the protection of St. Theodore, and grew under that of St. Mark, whose body was brought to Venice. Numerous legends were connected with these and other saints, and with a piece of the "True Cross," belonging to a Venetian monastery, and these legends were frequently represented by her painters; but the great pictures of Venice owe their inspiration chiefly to the patriotism of her citizens, for with them patriotism was a devotion.

Amongst Italian cities Venice was unique, not alone from her position, but on account of the tranquillity of her government as well. No petty quarrels or intrigues of despots disturbed the peace of a city inhabited by merchants who were princes, and by a free-born people who never saw war within their midst.

The uninterrupted sequence of the Republic, the victories of the Venetian fleets, the patriotism of the wealthy citizens, and the splendour of the public buildings, furnished many subjects and places for decorations illustrative of Venetian history.

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West; the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,

Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.

She was a maiden city, bright and free,

No guile seduced, no force could violate;

And when she took unto herself a mate,

"

She must espouse the everlasting Sea.' -Wordsworth.

VENETIAN MANNER OF PAINTING.

"What a delicious breath painting sets forth!

The violet bed's not sweeter.

"

Boschini gives some details as to the manner of painting adopted generally among the Venetian artists. He says that they did not sketch from the living model, but when