PAINTING. 



PAINTING. 



210 



of art : Fra Giovanni da Verona, Fra Vincenzo dalle Vacche, Fra 

 Raffaello da Brescia, Fra Damiauo da Bergamo, Gian Francesco Capo- 

 diferro, and Bartolomeo da Pola. 



Whilst the artists of the neighbouring cities of Venice were with 

 more or less success contentedly following the dry manner of Bel- 

 liui, it was completely exploded at Venice itself by two of his own 

 scholars, Giorgio Barbarelli di Castelfranco, commonly called Giorgione, 

 and Tiziano Vecellio da Cadore, or Titian. The former was born iu 

 1177. and died in 1511; the latter, born in 1480, died in 1576. 

 Giorgione introduced completely a new style of art : he discarded 

 everything conventional, and worked upon the principle that the exact 

 imitation of the effect of nature as a whole was the true object of 

 a painter, whatever might be the nature or purpose of his representa- 

 tion : the difficulties of execution involved in the carrying out this 

 principle, though a material one, are immense ; the greatest of them, 

 however, local colour and tone, are those which the painters of Venice 

 appear to have most fully mastered. Mind has ever been less an 

 object of study with the Venetian artists of this and the following 

 periods, than the mere pictorial representation, which appears generally 

 to have been the end of all their works : they painted for the picture's 

 sake only, not for the lesson or moral that the picture might convey, a 

 style properly designated the ornamental. Giorgione was the first 

 to imitate the textures of stuffs : he painted all his draperies from the 

 actual stuff represented, and painted draperies of many different sub- 

 rtances. Before his time all draperies were made of the same material, 

 and differed only in their colours or patterns. He is said to have been 

 first led to the study of tone in light and shade from seeing the works 

 of Lionardo da Vinci. His drawing was good, and his handling bold 

 yet careful. Whether Giorgione, if he had lived longer, would have 

 executed great works, in which every part and object would have been 

 as perfectly executed as some of his single figures and their costumes, 

 must remain a matter of opinion. This excellence was accomplished 

 by Titian, ami with a boldness of execution in his beat works (in his 

 earliest he finished highly) which far surpasses that of Giorgione ; on 

 which account, though originally an imitator of the style of Giorgione, 

 he is deservedly accounted his superior, and is universally considered 

 the founder of the great Venetian school of painting. Titian was in 

 nothing ideal, but true in almost everything that he painted, if not in 

 detail, at least in general effect. His scrupulous imitation of the effect 

 of every object necessarily excluded the ideal from his works ; and if 



uving is not the most chaste in style or correct in proportion, 

 it is at least natural, and it is not so inferior that his other excellences 

 do not compensate for il inferiority : in composition he was generally 

 simple, but sometimes grand. In colour, local and absolute, he is 

 nil' >ived to have surpassed all other painters ; in landscape, few have 

 surj>assed him; in jHirtrait, few have equalled him. His principal 

 masterpieces are considered a St. Peter Martyr, in the church of Santi 



mi e Paolo, and the Assumption of the Virgin, in the Academy 

 at Venice ; and the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, at the Kscurial in 

 Sp.iin, or at the church of the Jesuits at Venice : his numerous 

 portraits, and Veuuses, as they are called, are well known. [TITIAN, 

 in Bloc. Div.] The scholars of these two great painters were niinie- 

 The following celebrated masters were among the scholars of 



i.me : Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Francesco 

 Torbido, called II Moro, Pietro Luzzo, called Larotto (and by Vaaari, 

 Morto da Feltro), and Lorenzo Luzzi. The scholars and imitators of 

 Titian were likewise numerous, but the painters who might be strictly 

 termed his scholars are very few. He is said to have instructed his 

 brother Francesco Vecellio, who was an excellent painter, but Titian, 

 through jealousy, according to report, persuaded him to turn mer- 

 chant : his own son Urazio Vecellio was likewise a good |int<-r, and 

 .v..-re still four other painters of this family : Marco Vecellio, the 



.v of Titian ; Tiziano Vecellio, the son of Marco, called Tiziauello 



h him from Titian ; also a Fabrizio and a Cesare Vecellio. 



Of his scholars, the principal were Paris Bordone, a painter of the 



greatest ability ; he was only a short time the scholar of Titian, and 



ultimately adopted a style of his own, though varying in nothing 



', from that of Giorgione or Titian. 

 Two of Titian's mo-t celebrated followers were Girolamo di Tiziano 



i; nifa/.io of Verona, though called Veneziano by Vasari and 



To i numerate the followers of Titian, or Giorgione, or those 



who imitated tlie characteristics of their styles, would be to enumerate 



;ill the painters of Venice of this period, besides many of those 



of the neighbouring cities. There are however yet a few names to be 



menti iporary with the two great leaders of this 



school, who, though thry did not paint in their style, yet executed 



works which, in point of style of design, brilliancy of colour, and com- 



n. nrp liul" inferior to theirs : Lorenzo Ix>tto, Jacopo Palma 



tlin elder, Giovanni Cariani, and (iirolamo da Trevigi, an excellent 



jKjrti ait painter, who was killed in the service of Henry VIII. of 



England, at Boulogne in 1544. One of the most distinguished con- 



of Titian also, and hw chief rival in Venice, was Gian 



Antonio Liciniu (born 1484, died 1510), commonly called Porde'tione, 



from the place of hia birth in the Friuli. He painted much in the, 



style of Giorgione, but with still greater force of light and shade ; and 



he was also one of the best of the Venetian fresco painters. ThiTe 



were many in Venice who considered that Pordenone surpassed Titian : 



Zanetti, in speaking of these two rivals, says, in the style of Pordcuonc 



ABTl AHD SCI. DIV. VOL. VI. 



there is as much manner as nature, in that of Titian nature pre- 

 dominates. Pordenone formed a numerous school : Pomponio Amalteo 

 was the most distinguished of his scholars, who himself also had many 

 scholars, of whom Sebastiano Seccaute was a distinguished painter. 

 The following imitators of the style of Titian are all deserving of 

 mention : Andrea Schiavone di Sebenico, called Medula ; Ludovico 

 Fiutnicelli, of Trevigi ; Francesco Dominici, also of Trevigi ; Gio. 

 Battista Ponchino, of Castelfranco; Damiano Maza and Domenico 

 Campagnola, of Padua ; Giambattista Maganza, in Vicenza ; Alessandro 

 Bouvicino, called II Moretto di Brescia (a painter of superior powers 

 he formed several good scholars) ; and Romanino Savoldo Gambara 

 and Pietro Rosa, of Brescia the first was the master of Girolamo 

 Muziano, who afterwards distinguished himself at Rome ; the second 

 was known at Venice as Girolamo Bresciano. There were also 

 many other painters of merit, of the school of Titian, in various other 

 cities of the Venetian state ; but the limits of this article will not 

 admit of them all being enumerated by name. 



It remains yet to mention three of the greatest ornaments of the 

 golden age of Venetian painting, as this period is called Jacopo 

 Robusti, called Tintoretto ; Jacopo da Poute, called Bassano ; and 

 Paolo Cagliari, called Veronese. Tintoretto (born 1512, died 1494), so 

 named from the trade of his father, a dyer, is generally called the pupil 

 of Titian, but he remained only twelve days with him, and this at a time 

 when he was very young. [TINTORETTO, in Bioo. Div.] He professed 

 to colour like Titian, and to draw like Michel Angelo ; his practice 

 however did not accord with his profession, for compared with Titian, 

 he was cold in colouring, and extremely heavy iu light and shade ; he 

 was fond of violent contrasts and great masses of light and shade ; in 

 design, though muscular, he was often lean and incorrect ; and in his 

 compositions he was fond of many figures, generally thrown together 

 without arrangement. He was however extremely unequal iu his 

 works, some of which are amongst the finest productions of the 

 Venetian school ; his masterpiece is generally considered the Miracolo 

 dello Schiavo, in the Academy at Venice : he put his name to this 

 picture and to the two following the Crucifixion, at San Rocco, and 

 the Marriage at Cana, in the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. 

 Many of Tintoretto's greatest pictures are merely dead-coloured, and 

 that in a most careless manner : he was extraordinarily rapid in his 

 execution, he acquired the name of II Furioso in consequence : 

 Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could do as much in two 

 days OB he could do in two years. Bassauo (born 1510, died 1592) 

 commenced as an historical painter in the grand style, and as an 

 imitator of Titian ; but after he left Venice he changed it for an 

 original style of his own in the characteristic style of the Dutch 

 painters, and he was the first to introduce the taste for such works 

 into Italy. He painted landscapes, animals, domestic scenes, kitchens, 

 &c., and the various utensils for drinking, &c., particularly of brass. 

 In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Venice is a Sacrifice of 

 Noah, in which he introduced all the birds and animals that he had 

 drawn elsewhere : his greatest excellence was his colouring. He 

 brought up four sons as painters, but they were inferior to their 

 father. Paolo Veronese (born 1528, died 1588), though in his principles 

 of colouring identical with the other great masters of Venice, from the 

 splendour of his great compositions may be said to have formed a new 

 style of his own. He was fond of crowds of people, arrayed with all 

 the pomp and splendour that the imagination and colour could accom- 

 plish, filling his backgrounds with piles of the richest architecture. He 

 was however, as Algarotti says, careless iu design, and in costume 

 extremely licentious ; but his fancy was noble, his invention inexhaust- 

 ible, and even his faults are pleasing : one can scarcely look at his 

 magnificent pictures without longing to be a party in the scene. Ono 

 of his grandest compositions is the Marriage at Cana, in the Louvre 

 a vast composition, more than 20 feet high, and upwards of 30 wide : 

 it contains about 150 heads, many of which arc portraits of the most 

 illustrious and distinguished persons of his time. Another of his 

 chief works, ' the Family of Darius, 1 is in the National Gallery. Paolo 

 Veronese was the real master of Rubens. Verona had at this time 

 three other painters little inferior to Paolo himself : Battista d'Angelo, 

 called Del Moro, scholar and son-in-law of Torbido ; Domenico Ricci, 

 called Brusasorci ; and Paolo Farinato, called degli Uberti. 



Of the assistants and scholars of Paolo the most distinguished were 

 his brother Benedetto Cagliari, who generally painted his architecture 

 for him ; his son Carlo Cagliari, called Carletto, who died young ; 

 Gabriele Cagliari, likewise his son ; and Battista Zelotti, the most dis- 

 tinguished of all his followers. 



After the time of the great masters just spoken of, in the 17th 

 century the Venetian school of painting declined as much and as 

 Mpidly .is the Florentine did after the time of Michel Angelo. Many 

 of the Venetians of this period, mistaking apparently brilliancy for 

 art, cultivated little besides colour, and many of their pictures are 

 mere compositions of silks, satin.-, and other stuffs. There were 

 however several good painters during this period of decline. Jacopo 

 Palma the younger (born 1544, died about I(i28) holds a middle 

 place between the great painters of the last period and the man- 

 nerists of this. Lanzi calls him the last of the good age and the 

 first of the bad. He painted somewhat between the styles of Tin- 

 toretto and Paul Veronese ; had many defects .and many bu.vities, 

 and produced many bad ;m<! si/vcra! admirable picture*. Marco 



i' 



