Evelyn March Phillipps

“ No one gives us so closely as Bordone the type of woman who at this time was most admired in Venice. The Venetian ideal was golden haired, with full lips, fair, rosy cheeks, large limbed and ample, with “abundant flanks and snow-white breast.” A type glowing with health and instinct with life, but, to say the truth, rather dull, without deep passions, and with no look that reveals profound emotions or the struggle of a soul. From what we see of Bordone’s female portraits and from some of the mythological compositions he has left, he might have been among the most sensually minded of men. ”

“ All sorts of animals are made use of—a winged stag drinks from a cornucopia, sea-gods and mermaids are instructing nymphs to ride on dolphins, a sphinx plays with a dragon, satyrs are placed in a vintage scene, sirens beguile centaurs with music—all in the fancy of the Revival, exuberant, yet full of dainty grace. Bits of marble work strike the eye here and there—the heraldic bearing of Rovere, the eagle of Alidori; but there is little left to tell us of the glory of the princely house, of the great churchman who built it, or of the Umbrian master he employed to decorate it. ”

“ The brilliant array of figures is subordinated to the charm of the landscape. The evening dusk draws all objects into its embrace. [Pg 274] The long, low, deep-blue distance stands out against a gleam of sunset sky. The tree-trunks and light play of leafy branches, which break up the composition, are from da Ponte’s own country round Bassano. The pony upon which the boy scrambles, the cows, the dog among the quiet sheep, are given with all the loving truth of the born animal-painter. It is no wonder that Teniers borrowed ideas from him, and has more than once imitated his whole design. ”

“ The unity and balance of the whole, the variety, yet connection of the subject, the groundwork occupied, yet not crowded, free from spottiness and harsh transition. The palm tree filling the space on the right, the cypress on the left, the maintenance of the distances, relieve the fresco of all stiffness and flatness. The landscape is full of light and atmosphere. On the right we look away to a valley which has never lost the freshness of morning, on the left is a fairyland of sea and distant mountains and little far-away towns, gleaming, blue and mysteriously radiant. ”

“ The Virgin and the Child upon her knee are of his dull round-eyed type, the form and colours of her draperies are still unsatisfactory, but the knight in armour with his Eastern turban, the romantic young page, holding his horse, are pure Giorgionesque figures. Beautiful in themselves, set in a beautiful landscape glowing with light and air, the whole picture exemplifies what surprising excellence could be suddenly attained by even very inferior artists, who were constantly associating with greater men, at a moment when the whole air was, as it were, vibrating with genius. ”

“ The sky is of pure black marble, the island of grey, the fields, the sea, and the figures of pale marble, engraved with dark lines and inlaying. In the middle sits Wisdom, crowned with flowers, and bearing a palm branch and a book. On one hand Socrates receives from her the palm; on the other a philosopher casts a collection of trinkets and baubles into the sea. On a lower plane, a company of pilgrims, the foremost of whom is presumably a portrait, climbs a path set with stones and thistles, and beset with serpents, lizards, a tortoise, and a snail. ”

“ The glowing light and exquisitely graded shadows upon ivory limbs have a sensuous perfection and a refined, unselfconscious joy such as is felt in hardly any other work, except the painter’s own “Milky Way” in the National Gallery. In all these four pictures the feeling for design, a branch of art in which Tintoretto was past master, is fully displayed. In the Bacchus and Ariadne all the principal lines, the eyes and gestures, converge upon the tiny ring which is the symbol of union between the goddess and her lover, between the queenly city and the Adriatic sea. ”

“ Here, too, is another portrait, less splendid but as notable as any. In the corner on our left may be seen the slim form and thin dark face, sensitive and observant, of the little painter himself, and by his side a man with a shrewd, firm face, with a grand gold chain round his shoulders and holding an architect’s square in his hand. This is no doubt one of the sculptors or decorators of the rooms. It may be Bramante, or the elder San Gallo, or Andrea Bregno, that conjuror in marble.
The ceiling in this room is a marvel of richly-gilt and embossed stucco, mingled with painting. ”

“ Every event of importance was seized on by the Venetian ladies as an opportunity for arraying themselves in the richest attire, cloth of gold and velvet, plumes and jewels. Gentile has massed the ladies of Queen Catherine Cornaro’s Court around their Queen upon the left side of the canal. The light from above streams upon the keeper of the School, who holds the sacred relic on high. All round are the old, irregular Venetian houses, and in the crowd he paints the variety of men he saw around him every day in Venice. Yet even in this animated scene he retains his old quattrocento calm. ”

“ The distant objects are often as full in tone as the foreground; nowhere does the spirit of the composition rise into the sublime. On the other hand, the painter never forgets the purpose that has brought him here. With a self-restraint and a feeling for effect which are unerring, he hits upon the exact size, and keeps his compositions strictly within the picture and at the right distance from the eye. Raphael’s splendid creations in the stanze suffer because of their vastness of conception and execution compared to the narrow and inadequate space from which we view them. ”

“ Our mood changes; instead of observing and criticising, we become soothed, contemplative, dreamy. It is the carrying of this profound feeling into a colour-scheme by means of chiaroscuro, so that it is no longer learned and explanatory, but deeply sensuous and emotional, that is the gift to art which found full voice with Giorgione, and which in one moment was recognised and welcomed to the exclusion of the older manner, because it touched the chord which vibrated through the whole Venetian temperament. ”

“ In the striking head which he has signed and placed as a picture on the walls of the Virgin’s chamber in the chapel of the Baglioni at Spello, the face has sharpened and aged considerably, though it still looks young for a man of fifty-two. The lines have deepened, the mouth is compressed, and the face wears a look of ill-health, almost of suffering. It has the dark, arched brows of the artist, and clever, observant eyes which look out at us, sideways, tending to give a suspicious look, though probably it was only that he saw himself so in a mirror. ”

“ In the school of the Carmine in Venice Tiepolo has left one of his grandest displays. The haughty Queen of Heaven, who is his ideal of the Virgin, bears the Child lightly on her arm, and, standing enthroned upon the rolling clouds, hardly deigns to acknowledge the homage of the prostrate saint, on whom an attendant angel is bestowing her scapulary. The most charming amoretti are disporting in all directions, flinging themselves from on high in delicious abandon, alternating with lovely groups of the cardinal virtues. ”

“ The wistful, wide-eyed youths, the tender, dainty Madonnas and angels, the grave, richly-dressed saints and bishops, might all stand for princes, for maidens, and magicians in some enchanted realm of fairy. He does not take us into the region of the tragic, but his fancy, his invention, and resource are fertile and untiring; he leads us on, dazzling, entertaining us with a child-like amusement, disarming criticism by a lovable quality which enlightens us as to the natural sensibility of the painter’s mind, a sort of penetrating sweetness with which he can endow his creations. ”

“ The attendant angels look on with an air of sweet interest. The distant mountains, the undulating country, the little town of Conegliano, identified by the castle on its great rock, or Cima, are Arcadian in their sunny beauty. The clouds, as a critic has pointed out, are full of sun, not of rain. The landscape has not the sombre mystery of Titian’s, but is bright with the joyous delight of a lover of outdoor life. As Cima masters the new medium he becomes larger and simpler, and his forms lose much of their early angularity. ”

“ In this, so Umbrian a characteristic, he was a worthy follower of Fiorenzo, the not unworthy second to Perugino, and a forerunner of Raphael. The ample and spacious setting of his groups takes off from their cramped and crowded effect. Where the action is awkward, or the colour heavy, the whole spirit is lightened and lifted as you breathe the air of those delicious landscapes, or wander in imagination under those high-poised arcades, or look out from a palace chamber at the freedom and sweet breezes of a mountain distance. ”

“ We have already noted that to establish the significance of any period in art, it is necessary that the tendencies should unite and combine in some culminating spirits who rise triumphant over their contemporaries and soar above the age in which they live. Such a genius stands out above the eighteenth century crowd, and is not only of his century, but of every time. For two hundred years Tiepolo has been stigmatised as extravagant, mannered, as just equal to painting cupids, nymphs, and parroquets. ”

“ The gracious, self-absorbed lady, with her softly dressed hair, her loose glove, her silvery satin dress, is a contrast in look and spirit to the goddess whose free, simple attitude and outward gaze embody the nobler ideal. The sinuous and enchanting line of Venus’s figure against the crimson cloak has, I think, been the outcome of admiration for Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus,” and has the same soft, unhurried curves. Titian’s two figures are perfectly spaced in a setting which breathes the very aroma of the early Renaissance. ”

“ In the first fresco, whether we owe it to the young Raphael’s help or to the natural interest at starting, we recognise buoyancy and the love of experiment; and we have something of it again in the fairy-tale tableau, where the prince and the lady meet, but the colour has become gaudier and cheaper, the naïveté, the enchantment, the unconsciousness, have in some measure passed away, the tide of fancy is running lower, and it is now that we chiefly feel the lack of that well of science from which the artist can drink ever deeper as the years go by. ”