217 



PAINTING. 



PAINTING. 



218 



1431, died 1506) must be considered as the true founder of Lombard 

 painting, he having settled in Mantua and established there the school 

 whence proceeded many of the chief painters who have adorned the 

 schools of Lombardy. Mantegna's most famous paintings are his 

 ' Virgin and Saints," and ' Victory,' both in Mantua, but what 

 Vasari and his contemporaries regarded as his masterpiece, the series 

 of designs in water-colours, entitled ' The Triumph of Julius Caesar,' 

 is now in Hampton Court Palace. The great influence of Lionardo da 

 Vinci on the schools of Lombardy has been already noticed in speaking 

 of the Tuscan school. 



Antonio Allegri, or, from his birth-place, Correggio (b. 1494, d. 

 1534), may have been instructed in the school of Mantegna, though 

 after the death of Andrea, but he probably learnt more from the works 

 of Lionardo da Vinci in Milan, and from the practice of that master's 

 scholars ; and he appears to have studied the paintings of Giorgione and 

 Titian. Nothing in the history of art seems so prenMture as the style 

 of Correggio. His early pictures at Dresden show the same colouring 

 which he afterwards carried to such perfection. His feeling for grace, 

 tenderness, and delicacy of expreseiou led him sometimes to the verge 

 of sentimentalism ; but nothing can be purer or more refined in feeling 

 than some of his best works. Of colour and chiaroscuro his mastery 

 was perfect. No other artist ever played with light and shadow as he 

 wan wont to do. His half tones and his reflected lights produce the 

 effect of illusion. He knew his power, and delighted in displaying it in 

 the conquest of difficulties from which other masters shrank. The 

 finest works of Correggio are the frescoes in the cathedral of Parma, 

 and in the convent of St. Paul, in that city, the Notte and other pictures 

 at Dresden. In the National Gallery are some very fine easel pictures 

 by him, especially the ' Ecce Homo," 'Venus instructing Cupid,' and 

 the ' Vierge au Panier." [CoBBKuuio, in Bioo. Div.] The tendency to 

 affectation visible in Correggio was a dangerous legacy to the school of 

 Parma, and its evil consequences are especially visible in the works of 

 Francesco Mazzola, or II Parmigiano (b. 1503, d. 1540), to whom 

 however it is impossible to deny great power and great feeling for 

 beauty. [PARMIGIANO, in Bioo. Div.] But the influence of Correggio 

 was not lasting in the schools of Lombardy. Like those of the rest of 

 Italy they became imbued with the principles of the Caracci, and the 

 later painters of Lombardy are feebly eclectic or coldly academic. 



Of the A'eaimlilan tchool the earliest painter was Tommaso do" 

 Stefani, a contemporary of C'imabue ; and it can trace the succession 

 down to the present day ; but among them are very few great names. 

 Of the 1 5th century the chief is Antonio Solario, called Lo Zingaro, a 

 scholar of Lippo Dalmasio of Bologna, but who also studied under 

 Gentile da Fabriano at Rome, and indeed in most of the cities of Italy, 

 and whose numerous scholars formed what is called the school of Zingaro. 

 His most celebrated work was a fresco in the choir of S. Severino, 

 which represented in several compartments the principal events in the 

 life of 8. Benedict, and which, according to Lan/i, contained an 

 incredible variety of figures. Antonello da Messina is also claimed by 

 the Neapolitans ; but from having practised his art at Venice until 

 his death is usually placed among Venetian painters. Andrea Sabba- 

 tini da Salerno, whose style was formed on that of the Roman pointers, 

 and especially of Penigino and Katt'arlle, is the greatest name of the 

 16th century. Of the 17th century the great masters are Giuseppe 

 Kibera, called Lo Spagnoletto (b. 15!2, d. 1656) claimed by the 

 Neapolitans from having practised in Naples, though a Spaniard by 

 birth, and Salvator Rosa (b. 1615, d. 1673). Both of these painters 

 owed much of their daring exaggeration and coarseness of style to the 

 example of Carava;_gio, the founder of the so called ' Naturalisti.' 

 The Spaniard had considerable native vigour, and he shrank from the 

 representation of no scene however horrible. His best pictures are in 

 Naples, and among them are a ' Martyrdom of S. Januarius,' in the 

 Royal Chapel, and a S. Jerome in the church of the Trinity. Several 

 of his pictures are in Spain, and among them are ' Ixion on the 

 Win el,' in the palace of the Buon Retiro, at Madrid. Salvator Rosa 

 possessed more varied powers ; but he wag a man of irregular life, and 

 something of his character is reflected in his works'. His landscapes 

 (often wild scenes in the Apennines) and hm battle-pieces are the most 

 !:.' <l of his productions, and are superior to his historical pictures. 



Salvator had many followers, but, as in the other schools, the 

 Neapolitan painters fell in due course under the influence of the 

 dominant eclecticism, and ceased to have any distinctive character. 

 The last Neapolitan painter who requires mention is Luca Giordano, 

 called from his swiftness of execution Fa Presto (b. 1632, d. 1705). 

 He was a man of great ability, but his facility of invention and execu- 

 tion, and the readiness with which he could imitate different styles, led 

 him to a slightness of manner which was fatal to greatness. Lanzi 

 gives particulars of numerous later painters, some of whom are highly 

 praised by Neapolitan writers. 



(Among the authorities on the Schools of Painting in Italy may be 

 cited Vasari, ' Vite de' Pittori ; ' Baldinucci, 'Notizie de' Professori del 

 Disegno ; ' Delia Vale, ' Lettere Seneai ; ' Bellory Vite de' Pittori ; ' 

 Zinetti. ' Delia Pittura Veneziana ; ' Domenici, ' Vite dei Pittori 

 Napolitani ; ' Lanzi, ' Storia Pittorica della Italia ; ' Fiorillo, ' Ges- 

 chichte der Malerey ; ' Speth, ' Kunst in Italien ; ' Rumohr, ' Italien- 

 Uche Forschungen ; ' Kugler ' Handbook of Painting in Italy,' edited 

 by Sir C. L. Eautlake, and Wornutn, ' Epochs of Painting.' The rise 

 and progress of Italian pictorial design may be traced in the plates of 



D'Agincourt's ' Hist, de 1'Art pas les Monumens ' (Peinture) ; but still 

 better in Ramboux's splendid series of 300 folio plates of outline tracings 

 from the original frescoes of Italy from 1200 to 1600.) 



Northern School : Germany. Painting in Germany can be traced 

 back to the time of Charlemagne, but few examples are extant of 

 painters' works of a date prior to the loth century. Charlemagne was 

 a munificent patron of art. The dome of the cathedral erected by him 

 at Aix-la-Chapelle he caused to be covered with mosaics represent- 

 ing Christ enthroned, with the four-and-twenty elders worshipping. 

 The walls of his palaces glittered with representations of his own 

 victorious, and other famous fields of battle ; his oratories with sacred 

 subjects, or legends of the saints ; and miniatori exerted their best 

 skill in illuminating manuscripts for his service. Of the paintings and 

 mosaics no vestiges remain ; but illuminated manuscripts of the period 

 show that a considerable amount of imitative skill was reached, and in 

 the scrolls and arabesque ornamentations not a little fancy, though 

 the human face and form are as meagre and uncouth as in wholly 

 Byzantine work. The Byzantine influence is, however, still more 

 evident, in German work of the 10th and llth centuries, a consequence 

 perhaps of the marriage of Otho II. (978-983) with the Greek princess 

 Theophania having given the German artists access to the technical 

 skill of the Byzantines. From the middle of the 12th and in the 

 beginning of the 13th centuries^visible signs of new life in art began 

 to show themselves. Ecclesiastical art took a wider scope ; more 

 artistic individuality was displayed ; the drawing of the figure was 

 improved, and expression was studied. The miniature painters espe- 

 cially made a marked advance, and many excellent examples of their 

 work remain. In the 'Parcival* of Wolfram von Escheubach, who 

 lived early in the 13th century, the painters of Cologne and Maes- 

 tricht are especially mentioned ; and the series of compartments on 

 the ceiling of the former monastery of Brauweiler, near Cologne, of 

 about 1200, representing the ' Triumph of Faith,' and the figures of 

 the Apostles, one of which bears the date 1224, in the church of 

 St. Ursula, in Cologne, are, with those of scriptural subjects on the 

 wooden roof of St. Michael's Church, Hildisheim, of the beginning of 

 the 13th century, probably the oldest German pictures extant. But 

 a more important work is the extensive series of paintings on the 

 choir and transept of Brunswick cathedral, which appear to be of about 

 the middle of the 13th century ; and the paintings of saints recently 

 discovered in restoring the transept of Bamberg Cathedral. (Kuglev 

 and Waagen.) A school of very able artists seems to have existed at 

 this time in Bohemia; but towards the close of the 14th century 

 the German painters recovered the lead, those of the school of Cologne 

 being the most distinguished. Meister Wilhelm is spoken of by a 

 contemporary chronicler, in 1380, as the best master of his day. 

 Pictures attributed to him are to be seen in St. Castor, at Coblenz ; 

 some remarkably fine ones, formerly in the church of Sta. Clara, and 

 now in the Cathedral of Cologne ; in Cologne Museum ; and in the 

 Berlin Museum. The great altar-piece, formerly in the chapel of the 

 town-hall, now in the cathedral of Cologne, is supposed to have been 

 painted by Stephan Lothener, or as he was called, Meister Stephan, 

 who died in 1451. The richness of the colouring, and the dignity and 

 beauty of the Virgin, are most remarkable. Next to the schools of 

 Cologne and Bohemia at this time ranks that of Niirnberg. A branch 

 of the Cologne school appears about this time in Westphalia. Of this 

 school the chief was a painter known as the Meister von Liesborn, 

 whose great work was a large altar-piece in several compartments, 

 painted for the second convent in Liesborn, but which was cut in 

 pieces at the suspension of the convent by Napoleon in 180? ; several 

 of the pieces are lost; some are now, with other pictures of the master, 

 in the National Gallery. 



In the first half of the 15th century the German school departed 

 little from the style it had previously followed, notwithstanding the 

 great change introduced by the brothers Van Eyck into the practice of 

 the painters of the Netherlands, with whom the German painters had 

 always been closely associated. Traces of the influence of the technical 

 improvements of the Van Eycks are indeed seen in the great work of 

 Stephan Lothener : but the influence becomes much more palpable in 

 the succeeding generation of painters, after the return of Martin 

 Schongauer, and other Germans, from Brussels, where they had 

 acquired, in the studio of Rogier Van der Weyden, the elder, a full 

 initiation into the method of painting in oil as improved by the Van 

 Kycks. It was, however, in the technics rather than in style that the 

 influence of the Netherland masters was apparent. The old German 

 nobleness of spirit was retained, but divested of some of the uncouth- 

 ness of guise with which it had been disfigured ; and its highest 

 examples show great depth of thought and force of imagination, com- 

 bined with singular faculty of invention and manipulative dexterity. 

 The principal German painter of this period was Martin Schongauer, 

 or, as be is commonly termed, Martin Schb'n (b. about 1420, d. 1488), 

 and who was equally famous as a painter and an engraver. Genuine 

 pictures by him are very scarce, those bearing his name being mostly 

 old copies of his engravings. His most important painting is one 

 of the Virgin in the church of St. Martin at Colmar. A small picture 

 of the ' Death of the Virgin,' formerly in the collection of the King of 

 Holland, an early work of Schongauer's, is in the National Gallery. 

 Schongauer' s pictures exhibit great knowledge of effect and a rich 

 wana tone of colour. His fertility and vigour of imagination, and 



