205 



PAINTING. 



PAINTING. 



208 



1512 he returned to Milan; in 1514 (Vasari says 1513) he visited 

 Rome ; and in 1516 he went with Francis I. to France, where he died, 

 at Fontainebleau in 1519, aged 67. [Visci, in Bioo. DIY.] 



When Da Vinci returned in 1500 to Florence, the only painter there 

 of extraordinary ability was Fra Bartolomeo di San Marco, or Baccio 

 della Porto, commonly called II Frate, then in his twenty-ninth year. 

 Michel Angelo w"as at that time in his twenty-sixth year only, and had 

 done nothing in painting, having confined himself up to that time 

 nearly exclusively to sculpture ; which rendered the more remarkable 

 his great success in 1506, in the so-called cartoon of Pisa, executed by 

 order of the gonfaloniere Pietro Soderini, for one end of the council- 

 hall of the old palace of the Signory, for the other end of which Da 

 Vinci made his cartoon of the Battle of the Standard, in which a 

 group of horsemen were contending for some colours, with various 

 accessories. 



The good effects of the munificence of Lorenzo de' Medici and his 

 encouragement of the arts did not completely show themselves until 

 after the second restoration of the Medici in 1512. Lorenzo established 

 an academy in his garden near the church of San Marco, and formed 

 a splendid museum of ancient and modern works of art : it was the 

 nursery of all the great artiste of Florence of the early part of the 16th 

 century. Some singular scenes were enacted by Savonarola during his 

 short triumph over the general order of things. In 1497, at the time 

 of the Carnival, instead of the usual bonfire in the market-place, 

 Savonarola had a large scaffolding prepared, and upon thia he piled 

 many of the most excellent works of the Florentine artists, both in 

 painting and sculpture, including the busts and portraits of several 

 beautiful Florentine females, with many foreign tapestries, condemned 

 on account of their nakedness ; and they were all burnt amidst the 

 rejoicings of the populace. In 1498, the following year, he repeated 

 the scene on a much greater scale : on this pile was burnt an illumi- 

 nated copy of Petrarch. Fra Bartolomeo, Lorenzo di Credi, and other 

 distinguished painters, took part in this fanatical destruction. 



Fra Bartolomeo imitated, or rather painted in a very similar style to, 

 Lionardo da Vinci. Several of his works are in many respects admir- 

 able, and in cam position, in expression, in the cast of draperies, and in 

 design, bear the strongest resemblance to the works of RaflUelle : the 

 great figure of St. Mark, in the Pitti palace, combines with the style of 

 Rafiaelle much of the grandeur of the prophets and sibyls of Michel 

 Angelo in the Sistine chapel. Bartolomeo was the true master of 

 Raffaclle: these two great painters contracted a friendship for each 

 other in 1504, when Kaffaclle wan in Florence and only twenty-one 

 years of age. Bartolomeo died in 1517, three years before Kaffaelle. 

 Mariotto Albertinelli followed the style of Bartolomeo, and painted 

 many excellent pictures. 



Andrea Vannucchi, called del Sarto from the trade of his father (a 

 tailor), was also one of the most distinguished of all the Florentine 

 painters. He was the scholar of Piero di Cosimo, and had great ability 

 of execution, but he wanted invention. His style in colouring and in 

 chiaroscuro is similar to that of Fra Bartolomeo, but from the study 

 of the cartoon of Pisa he had acquired much of the style of JI icliel 

 Angelo in design. Hia easel pictures are very numerous. He died in 

 1530. 



Michel-Angelo Buonaroti, painter, sculptor, and architect, the scholar 

 of Domenico Uhirlandajo, revolutionised painting not only in Tuscany, 

 but in Italy, yet although his style can scarcely be said to have 

 anything in common with that of any of his predecessors, he was 

 anticipated in some of the greatest beauties of composition and design 

 by Da Vinci and by Kaffaelle. The chief characteristics of his works 

 are severe grandeur of design and an occasional sublimity of invention : 

 the frescoes of the vault of the Sistine chapel, painted in 1512, are in 

 these respects unrivalled by any other works. The cartoon of Pisa, 

 however, was by some contemporary critics considered to be a superior 

 work in design : it represented many soldiers of Pisa suddenly called 

 to arms when bathing in the Arno, and was a very superior work to 

 the rival cartoon of Lionardo da Vinci. Benvenuto Cellini calls these 

 cartoon* the school of the world, so long as they were exhibited to the 

 public : Vasari speaks to the same effect. They were both lost a few 

 yean after they were made, in a manner never accounted for. Michel 

 -\n_vli/s was cut in pieces. There is an old print of Lionardo's by 

 n:k, made from a bad drawing; and Marcautonio and Agostino 

 'iatio both engraved parts of Michel Angelo's. The style of 

 Michel Angelo has its faults, independent of an excessive muscular 

 ut : he had but one standard of form for man, woman, and 

 child, of every age and every degree ; his women are female men, and 

 his children diminutive giants. His great works are his single figures, 

 but his paintings arc as statuesque as his statues, and express a similar 

 character : his Moses, his Lorenzo de' Medici, in sculpture ; his Daniel, 

 and his Jeremiah or Isaiah, in painting. His Last Judgment, a vast 

 work, but the production of his old age, has the faults of his other 

 works without their grandeur or sublimity ; it was finished in 1541, in 

 his 67th year. Michel Angelo made many drawings, but he painted 

 icarcely anything in oil. Though the great works of Michel Angelo 

 were executed at Home, they influenced chiefly the Florentine school ; 

 and the painters of Florence, unlike those of Home, not being held in 

 restraint in their imitation of Michel Angelo by any veneration for the 

 W"rl>< nf KaQaelle, the imitation was the more palpable, and it was an 

 imitation of manner only, not of ityle. The anatomical school is the 



best designation for the Florentine imitators of Michel Angelo. Fran- 

 cesco Granacci and Daniel Ricciarelli of Volterra, were the least man- 

 nered of his scholars. The latter painted with great care, and his 

 Descent from the Cross, in the church of TrinitJi de' Monti, is reckoned 

 one of the finest pictures in Rome. Another celebrated follower of 

 Michel Angelo was Giorgio Vasari ; he is better known however for 

 his lives of the painters, sculptors, and architects, than for his paintings. 

 He executed an immense number of works, but beyond a general cor- 

 rectness of drawing they have nothing to recommend them. Other 

 followers and imitators of his style were Sebastiano del Piombo, Mar- 

 cello Venusti, Federigo Zuccaro, Francesco Rossi de' Salviati, Jacopo 

 del Conte, Angelo Bronzino, and Allessandro Allori. Painters of this 

 period who were not carried away with the host of imitators were 

 Franciabigio, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Domeuico Puligo, scholars of 

 Andrea del Sarto ; besides some others of less note : also II Rosso, or 

 Maitre Roux, as he is called by the French. 



At the end of the 16th century a new style was introduced by 

 Ludovico Cardi, commonly called Cigoli, which combined careful 

 drawing with brilliant colouring. Santi di Titi preceded him in his 

 indifference towards the 'anatomical school, and he was greatly assisted 

 in establishing his own style by Gregorio Pagani and Domeuico da 

 Passignano. This school was founded upon the style of Baroccio and 

 that of Coreggio, and had much in common with the eclectic school of 

 the Caracci. Its ascendency was promoted by the works of the 

 Venetian Ligozzi at Florence, and by the school of Francesco Vanni at 

 Siena. These painters were followed by younger artists, by Giovanni 

 Biliverti, Fabrizio Boschi, Christofano Allori, Jacopo da Ernpoli, 

 Giovanni Battista Vanni ; also Matteo Koselli and his scholars 

 Giovanni Manozzi da San Giovanni, Baldassare Franceschini, called II 

 Volterrano, and Francesco Boschi, an excellent portrait painter ; like- 

 wise by Francesco Turini and his scholar Simoue Pignone; and 

 Lorenzo Lippi, like his friend Salvator Rosa, poet and painter. 



Also in a somewhat similar taste of colouring and design, though in 

 a very different style of execution, painted Carlo Dolci ; his elaborate 

 finish however is the principal merit of his works ; his colouring is 

 often green, yet some of his female heads are executed in exquisite 

 taste. He died in 1686. 



In about the middle of the 17th century another change took 

 place in the style of the Florentine painters, as well as in that of the 

 Roman, through the extensive and attractive works of Pietro Berret- 

 tini da Cortona, in Florence and in Rome. Cortona was invited to 

 Florence about the year 1637, and was occupied for several following 

 years over his great allegorical frescoes in the Pitti Palace ; he left 

 them however unfinished : they were completed by Giro Ferri, his 

 most distinguished follower. In Florence the style of Cortona attained 

 completely the ascendency, and prevailed the whole of the 17th 

 century and the greater part of the 18th. Cortona paid little atten- 

 tion to expression ; his object was to produce a grand effect on the 

 whole : his style was decorative, and his works' will not bear inspection 

 in the parts. He is the head of those artists called machinisti by the 

 Italians. His principal followers in Florence were the three Dandini 

 and their scholars, Antonio Domenico Gabbiani and others, and his 

 scholar Benedetto Luti ; also Salvi Castelluci, Giacinto and Ludovico 

 Gimignani, Lazzaro Baldi, Allessandro Gherrardini, and Sebastiano 

 Galeotti. Two of the most distinguished Florentine artists of the end 

 of the 18th century were Gio Battista Cipriani and the landscape- 

 painter Francesco Zuccherelli, who both spent some time in this 

 country: also Tommaso Gherardini, who died in 1797, and Pietro 

 Pedroni, who died in 1803, are reckoned among the best painters of 

 their period. 



Venetian Sfhoul, The historians of Venetian art date the commence- 

 ment of modern painting in Venice from the llth century, or about 

 1070, when the Doge Selvo invited some Greek mosaic-workers to 

 Venice to adorn the church of St. Mark ; and in the 13th century, 

 after the taking of Constantinople by the Venetians, in 1204, not only 

 works of art, but artists also, are said to have been plentiful in Venice, 

 Venetians as well as Greeks ; only two however of the former can now 

 be named, Giovanni da Venezia and Martiuello da Murano. On an old 

 wooden sarcophagus of the Beata Giuliana, in the monastery of San 

 Biagio alia Giudecca, there is a painting of about the year 1262; but 

 the painter's name is not known : it is in a rough style, but Lanzi is 

 of opinion that it is not Greek. 



It was not until after the time of Giotto, who executed some 

 works in Padua and Verona in the beginning of the 14th century, that 

 the painters of the Venetian states began to make themselves known 

 by their works. The oldest known works at Padua are by painters of 

 the school of Giotto. The extensive paintings in the church of San 

 Giovanni Battista at Padua are attributed to Giusto Padovano, a 

 scholar of Giotto and a Florentine by birth, though naturalised at 

 Padua. Guariento of Padua was also a follower of Giotto, and was 

 celebrated about 1360 : some of his works are still remaining. There 

 are als.i some works still extant of two celebrated Veronese painters of 

 the same time : of Alticherio da Zevio, near Verona, in the old church 

 of San Giorgio, illustrating the life of St. James ; and others of the 

 life of St. John by Sebeto of Verona, in the same church, much in the 

 style of Giotto, especially the former. To these may be added a 

 Jacopo of Verona, who painted some frescoes in San Michel at 1'adua ; 

 and a Oio. Miretto of Padua, who executed some works iu the great 



