light from heaven and the flames of the burning pitch. In both we see faith and mental fortitude triumphant over physical agony. The representation of suffering was not, however, at all congenial to the great lover of sensual beauty, whose peculiar excellences found fuller scope in the lighter and more cheerful subjects of heathen mythology, or of allegory; and the original genius he brought to bear upon the worn-out fables of antiquity is well illustrated in his Diana and Callisto, so one side, and an old man in the distance on the other; and Sacred and Profane Love, symbolized by two beautiful women seated on the rim of a fountain, now in the Borghese Palace, Rome. Titian's portraits are very numerous. Many of the finest are in England; one, for instance, in the Hampton Court Palace, of a dark man, with a face full of eloquence and feeling; another in the National gallery; and two at Windsor Castle-one of a certain Andrea Franchesini, and one of Titian met with out of Italy; he is represented in the National Gallery by an Apostle. Alessandro Bonvicino (1498-ab. 1555), commonly called Il Moretto da Brescia, who left many fine altar-pieces to his native city, and several good easel pictures, three of which, two Portraits of Noblemen and a group of S. Bernardino of Siena and other Saints, are in the National Gallery.. Giovanni Battista Moroni (ab. 1510-1578), who was a pupil of Bonvicino, painted a few historic subjects, but his chief title to fame lies in his portraits, which yield little if anything to those of Titian. In life-like representation and masterly treatment they have been equaled by few portraits ever executed. A splendid example may be seen in the National Gallery in the Portrait of a Tailor; the Lawyer in the same collection, which contains three other works by him, is but little inferior; and that of Ercole Tasso, at Stafford House, disputes with the Tailor the claim of being his masterpiece. Here, too, we must mention Girolamo Romani (1484-87-1566), called Il Romanino of Brescia, who was a successful imitator of Titian and Giorgione, and a rival of Bonvicino. The Nativity in the National Gallery is one of his best works. Bonifazio Veronese (died 1540), the most important of the three artists of this name, was a follower, if not a pupil, of Palma Vecchio; his style was also based on that of Titian and Giorgione, and several of his works have passed under the names of those masters. The second, Bonifazio Veneziano (died 1553), was a pupil of the first. All three are best studied in Venice. painted too rapidly to achieve the highest results, and his works are remarkable for their gigantic size rather than for their artistic qualities. His chief works were those he executed for the Scuola di S. Marco, of which the Miracle is one, and those for the Scuola di S. Rocco, Venice. The S. George destroying the Dragon is the only work by Tintoretto Greater than any of these, were two masters who flourished toward the end of the sixteenth century, and kept alive the vitality of the Venetian School by the production of works of original genius and individuality long after the art of Painting in the rest of Italy had fallen into the hands of mere mannerists and imitators. We allude to: Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594), known as Tintoretto, and Paolo Caliari (1528-1588), called Paolo Veronese. The former studied for a very short time under Titian, and aspired to combine his excellence of coloring with Michelangelo's correctness and grandeur of form. In some few of his works he gave proof of considerable power; his Miracle of S. Mark, in the Academy of Venice, for instance, is finely conceived and forcibly executed; but he TINTORETTO. in the National Gallery; but two may be seen in Hampton Court Palace-his Esther before Ahasuerus, and the Nine Muses. In the works of Paolo Veronese, the distinctive principles of the Venetian School are far more successfully fulfilled than in those of Tintoretto. They rival in magnificence those of Titian himself, whilst his delicacy of chiaro-oscuro, the sincerity with which he brought out the true relations of objects to each other in air and light, his genuine feeling for physical beauty, the softness and freedom of his penciling, his mastery of true symbolism, and his power of catching the essential characteristics both of men and animals, give him a high position as an independent master. The Marriage at Cana, now in the Louvre, is considered his finest work. It contains 120 figures or heads, including portraits of many of the greatest celebrities of his day, and is full of life and action. Scarcely less famous are his Feast of Levi, in the Academy of Venice; his Feast in the house of Simon the Pharisee, in the Louvre ; and another of the same subject in the Turin Gallery (these four feasts were painted for the refec Venetian force of coloring and chiaro-oscuro. He exceled in painting landscapes, animals, and objects of still life. He is well represented in the National Gallery, which contains a Portrait of a Gentleman; Christ and the Money-changers; and the Good Samaritan. The Nativity, in S. Giuseppe, and the Baptism of S. Lucella, in S. Maria delle Grazie, both in Bassano, are considered his master pieces. We have now completed our account of the great Italian Cinque-cento masters; and, looking back. upon the results obtained, before tracing the progress BY PAOLO VERONESE. traiture had attained to its highest development; landscape had been greatly improved, and genre painting had been introduced; the religious subjects almost exclusively favored in the fifteenth century had given place to some extent to those of antique mythology and history; and a general love of art pervaded all classes. Unfortunately, the high position Painting had thus gloriously won was not maintained, and even at the close of the sixteenth century there were signs of its approaching decadence. study nature exclusively, and to imitate faithfully and boldly every detail of ordinary life. These two schools exercised great influence, alike on each AGOSTINO CARRACCI. other and on their contemporaries in other countries. THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA. The leading Eclectic School of Italy -that of Bolognawas founded by Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619), in conjunction with his two cousins, Agostino Carracci (15571602) and Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). Lodovico appears to have been rather a teacher than an original painter. His principal works are at Bologna; the Enthroned Madonna with SS. Francis and Jerome, a Transfiguration, and a Nativity of S. John the Baptist, are considered the finest. He is represented in the National Gallery by a group of Susannah and the Elders. His principal characteristics are power of expressing sorrow and skillful imitation of the chiaro-oscuro of Correggio. ANNIBALE CARRACCI. |