566 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



was adorned by the genius of Leonardo da 

 Vinci and Michael Angelo. 



The Roman School (into which that 

 Bologna Romagna merged) is the most im- 

 portant for its solid and legitimate effect ; a 

 result which may be attributed to the purity of 

 study and delicacy of feeling engendered by 

 its great head, Raffaelle Sanzio d'Urbino, fol- 

 lowed out by Giulio Romano, Mazzolina di 

 Ferrara, Zucchero, Baroccio, Carlo Maratti, 

 and others. 



The Venetian School gloried in its 

 color, and the magic pencil of Titian gave it a 

 position for which Giorgione and Sebastian 

 del Piozbino had but prepared it. The pupils 

 and successors of him who " dipped his pencil 

 in the rainbow," viz. Bonifazio, Bordone, Tin- 

 toretto, Paul Veronese, Bassano, Garofalo, and 

 others, followed in his footsteps, and gave this 

 school a European renown. 



The Lombard School, also known as 

 that of the Eclectics, was established by the 

 Caracci, the principles of which have been ex- 

 plained by Agostino in a sonnet of his own 

 composing, which may be thus translated : 

 "Adopt the design of the Romans, with the 

 color of the Lombard school, adding the mo- 

 tion and shade of that of Venice. Join the 

 just symmetry of Raphael with the power of 

 Michael Angelo, the purity of Correggio, the 

 truth of Titian, the decorum and solidity of 

 Tebaldi, the learned invention of Primaticcio, 

 and a little of Parmigiano's grace." To this 

 school belong Correggio and Parmigiano, and 

 such were the painters from whom the Car- 

 racci were induced to select the qualities of j 

 the Eclectic style ; " for Agostino and Annibal i 

 were, at the commencement of their career, 

 unacquainted with the works of the originators 

 of the beauties which they prof essed to imitate. 

 Before opening their celebrated school, however, 

 they visited Parma and Venice, and became 

 familiar with the works of Correggio and Titian ; 

 but it was only mediately, through the works 

 of the masters above mentioned, that they could 

 demonstrate their principles to their scholars. 

 The St. Cecilia of Raphael was not, and could 

 not have been, taken as a standard of that 

 great master. Lodovico is the real founder 

 of the Bolognese school ; he was the guide 

 and instructor of his cousins, who were some 

 years his juniors." Their style of proceeding 

 in " making up " a painter according to their 

 own recipe above given, has been severely com- 

 mented upon by Fuseli in the eleventh lecture. 

 Certainly with the age of the Macchinisti be- 

 gan the decadence of that great and pure Art 

 revived again by the genius of Raphael ; and a 

 meretricious and untrae style, in which the 

 dictum of the school took the place of the 



teachings of nature, and led to the adoption of 

 individual whims, which, following so rapidly 

 one upon another, caused the school to sink 

 from Guido Reni, and Guercino, to Giordano. 

 Nicolas Poussin endeavored to prop its fall by 

 a reversion to the purer principles of classic 

 Art ; but neither his genius, nor that of the 

 men who had ranked themselves as opposers of 

 the school under the name of Naturalisti, 

 could prevent the decay of Italian Art. ' < This 

 decline resulted with many painters from a 

 light and pleasing but superficial invention, 

 accompanied by a corresponding skillful but 

 decorative treatment ; in others, it proceeded 

 from a close but spiritless adherence to a set of 

 obsolete rules, which destroyed the peculiarity 

 of individuals as well as of schools. With few 

 exceptions, sound technical science, as the 

 basis of manipulation in painting, was lost." 



The German School may be said to 

 have originated with the versatile genius of 

 Albert Durer, and was followed by Lucas 

 van Leyden, Holbein, Netscher, Mengs and 

 others. It was remarkable for a strict adher- 

 ence to nature, and for much power of draw- 

 ing, qualifications which still remain the chief 

 characteristics of its modern disciples, under 

 Cornelius, Kaulbach, and Overbeck. 



The Flemish School combines with Ger- 

 man after the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 Its early history begins with the Van Eycks, 

 who have given to the world a school of their 

 own in Roger of Bruges, Hans Hemling, Jan 

 Mabuse, and Quentin Matsys. Its great 

 glories center in Rubens and Vandyke ; their 

 works are remarkable for brilliance of color, 

 exactness of drawing, and great command of 

 chiaro-oscuro : but Rubens wants grace, and 

 in founding his style on nature, relying on his 

 power of exhibiting her as he saw her, he fre- 

 quently lacks dignity. Teniers excelled in 

 arrangement and harmony, though he very 

 frequently lost his proper position in the low- 

 ness of his subjects. Steinwick, Spranger, 

 Snyders, Neeffs, and others, may be particular- 

 ized as among the remarkable men of a school 

 which may be considered as the legitimate 

 descendant of the Venetian school of colorists. 



The Dutch School is even lower in refine- 

 ment ; but the great genius displayed by its 

 principal painter, Rembrandt, elevated it into 

 importance. His marvelous power over light 

 and shade was what the world had never before 

 seen, and it has died with him who first exhib- 

 ited it. It was too much the fault of this 

 school to select the vulgarest scenes of life for 

 the employment of the pencil ; thus we find 

 great power of drawing, coloring, and a per- 

 fect mastery of the mechanism of Art, com- 

 bined with high artistic feeling, devoted to 



