Luigi Lanzi

“ To a genius so comprehensive, and so skilled in drawing the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than the Resurrection; to an artist who delighted in the awful, no story more suitable than the day of supernal terrors. He saw Raffaello pre-eminent in every other department of the art: he foresaw that in this alone could he expect to be triumphant; and, perhaps, he indulged the hope also that posterity would adjudge the palm to him who excelled all others in the most arduous walk of art. ”

“ Yet I will not depart from the more correct rule which forbids us in such doubtful points to depart readily from history: for each painter was always free to choose his style; he might be directed in one path by his master, and drawn a different way by his own genius, or by accidental circumstances.
Baldassare Peruzzi is one of the numerous individuals whose merit must not be measured by their good fortune. ”

“ Is it not lamentable thus to see so many old and honoured artists compelled, in spite of history, to become pupils to masters so much younger and less celebrated than themselves? I know that various writers have censured Baldinucci as an historian of doubtful fidelity, artful in concealing or misrepresenting facts, captious in expounding the opinions of Vasari, and more intent on captivating than instructing his readers. ”

“ Antonio, the scholar of Piero, became one of the best painters of that age. In the chapel of the Marchesi Pucci, at the church of St. Sebastiano de' Servi, there is a martyrdom of the saint by him, which is one of the best pictures of the fifteenth century I have ever seen. The colouring is not in the best style; but the composition rises above the age in which he lived, and the drawing of the naked figure shews what attention he had bestowed on anatomy. He was the first Italian painter who dissected bodies in order to learn the true situations of the tendons and muscles. ”

“ Much was then attained, because nature began to be imitated, especially in the heads, to which the artists imparted a vivacity, that even at this day is surprising. On viewing the figures and portraits of those times, they actually appear to look at, and to desire to enter into conversation with the beholder. It still remained, however, to give ideal beauty to the figure, fulness to design, and harmony to colouring, a true method to aerial perspective, variety to composition, and freedom to the pencil, which on the whole was still timid. ”

“ In the time of Marc Antonio, who rose into notice soon after the year 1500, the art, in its perfect state, had been introduced into Italy, insomuch that he was enabled to rival Albert Durer and Luca d'Ollanda, equalling them in the mechanism of the art, and surpassing them in point of design. It is from this triumvirate of genius that the more finished age of engraving takes its date; and nearly at the same period we behold the most improved era in the art of painting. The completion of the new art soon diffused good models of design through every school, which led the way to the new epoch. ”

“ Many rely much upon history for the truth. But how frequently does it happen that the authority of an historian is cited in favour of a family picture, or an altar-piece, the original of which having been disposed of by some of the predecessors, and a copy substituted in its place, the latter is supposed to be a genuine painting! Others seem to lay great stress on the importance of places, and hesitate to raise doubts respecting any specimen they find contained in royal and select galleries, assuming that they really belong to the artists referred to in the gallery descriptions and catalogues. ”

“ We may add, that in a history so diversified, numerous examples occur suited to the genius of different students, who have often to lament their want of success from this circumstance alone, that they had neglected to follow the path in which nature had destined them to tread. On the influence of examples I shall add no more: should any one be desirous also of precepts under every school, he will find them given, not indeed by me, but by those who have written more ably on the art, and whom I have diligently consulted with regard to different masters, as I shall hereafter mention. ”

“ Diligence is ever laudable when exerted on a point so nice as ascertaining the hand-work of a celebrated master. It may prevent our paying ten guineas for what may not be worth two; or placing in a choice collection pictures that will not do it credit; while to the curious it affords scientific views, instead of creating prejudices that often engender errors. That mistakes should happen is not surprising. A true connoisseur is still more rare than a good artist. ”

“ In assigning artists to any school I have paid more regard to other circumstances than the place of their nativity; to their education, their style, their place of residence in particular, and the instruction of their pupils: circumstances, indeed, which are sometimes found so blended and confused, that several cities may contend for one painter, as they are said to have done for Homer. In such cases I do not pretend to decide; the object of my labours being only to trace the vicissitudes of the art in various places, and to point out those artists who have exercised an influence over them ”

“ Much of the uncertainty, with regard to pictures, arises from a similitude between the style of different masters: these I collect together under one head, and remark in what one differs from the other. Ambiguity often arises from comparing different works of the same painter, when the style of some of them does not seem to accord with his general manner, nor with the great reputation he may have acquired. On account of such uncertainty, I usually point out the master of each artist, because all at the outset imitate the example offered by their teachers ”

“ The colouring is bold, the proportions are gigantic even in the distance, and not badly preserved; in short, painting may there be said to have almost advanced beyond what the mosaic worker at first attempted to do. The whole of these, indeed, are steps in the progress of the human intellect not to be recounted in one history, and form beyond question the distinguishing excellence of the Florentine artist, when put into competition with either the Pisans or the Sienese. ”

“ At the same time, due regard should be paid to that very respectable class of readers, who, in a history of painting, would rather contemplate the artist than the man; and who are less solicitous to become acquainted with the character of a single painter, whose solitary and insulated history cannot prove instructive, than with the genius, the method, the invention, and the style of a great number of artists, with their characteristics, their merits, and their rank, the result of which is a history of the whole art. ”

“ There were specimens of antique sculpture at Florence, which may be yet seen near the cathedral, (not to mention those which he afterwards saw at Rome) ; and their merit, then already established by the practice of Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa, could not be unknown to Giotto, to whom nature had granted such a taste for the exquisite and the beautiful. When one contemplates some of his heads of men; some of his forms, proportioned far beyond the littleness of his contemporaries; his taste in flowing, natural, and becoming drapery ”

“ The scaffold, the executioner, the Prefect on horseback who is ordering him to strike, the great crowd of spectators variously affected, and all the apparatus of a public punishment, strike and astonish equally the connoisseur and the unskilled in painting; the holy martyr especially interests us, who, on her knees, with a placid composure, willingly resigns her life, and is about to receive from angels the eternal crown purchased with her blood. ”

“ But on examining the old paintings of Siena, of Venice, of Bologna, and of Parma, they are found to be dissimilar in idea, in choice of colouring, and in taste of composition. All, then, are not derived from Florence.
My second proposition is, That no people then excelled in, nor contributed, by example, so much to the progress of art as the Florentines. Rival cities may boast artists of merit, even in the first era of painting; their writers may deny the fame of Giotto and his disciples; but truth is more powerful than declamation. ”

“ All is varied and fanciful in the garments, the foreshortenings, and the attitudes: all is novel in the composition and the designs. He that contemplates the pictures of Sandro and his associates on the walls, and then, raising his eyes to the ceiling, beholds Michelangiolo "soaring like an eagle above them all," can hardly believe that a man, not exercised in painting, in what may be considered as his first essay, should so nearly approach the greatest masters of antiquity, and thus open a new career to modern artists. ”

“ They transferred into their compositions that statue-like rigidity, that strength of limb, and those markings of the origin and insertion of muscles, that severity of countenance, and those positions of the hands and figures, which characterized his sublimely awful style; but without comprehending the principles of this extraordinary man, without thoroughly understanding the play of the softer parts of the human figure, either by inserting them in wrong situations, or by representing, in the same manner, those in action and at rest; those of a slender stripling, and of the full-grown man. ”

“ Antonio Tempesti, of Florence, a scholar both of Titi and Stradano, was among the first to acquire a celebrated name in Italy for landscapes and for battles. He practised engraving on copper, prepared cartoons for tapestry, and gave scope to his genius in the most fanciful inventions in grotesque and ornamental work. He surpassed his master in spirit, and was inferior to none, not even [Pg 279] to the Venetians. In a Letter on Painting by the Marquis Giustiniani, [211] he is adduced as an example of great spirit in design, a gift conferred by nature, and not to be acquired by art. ”

“ The last mentioned production, though imperfect, is looked upon as a model in the art. The method of this artist was first to draw the figure naked, then to drape it, and to form a chiaroscuro, sometimes in oils, that marked the distribution of the light and shadow, which constituted his great study, and the soul of his pictures. This large picture demonstrates such preparatives; and it has as high a value in painting, as the antique plaster models have in sculpture, in which [Pg 193] Winckelmann discovers the stamp of genius and compass of design better than in sculptured marbles. ”

“ It has become a part of liberal knowledge to discern the name and hand of a master, as well as to specify the most beautiful works of each engraver. Thus, during the decline of painting, the art of engraving on copper has risen in estimation; modern artists in some points equal or surpass the more ancient; their reputation, their remuneration, and the quick process of their labours, attract the regard of many men of genius born to adorn the arts, who to the loss of painting, devote their attention to the graver. ”

“ Indeed, this is not at all improbable: both writers and painters are impelled by their natural genius to adopt a peculiar style; and whoever will compare the portraits that remain, expressive of the elevated, touching, penetrating, and beautiful spirit, incessantly bent upon acquiring something still more exquisite in art, which inspired these two prodigies, will find little difficulty in believing that both produced works, which owing to a similarity of natural taste, selection and admiration of the same object, might be mistaken for specimens of the same hand. ”

“ Thus it is with the Schools of Painting; no one of which is so perfect as to leave us nothing more to desire; no one so faulty that it has not much in it to commend. The Florentine school (I do not speak of its greatest masters, but of the general practice of the others) had no great merit in colouring, from which Mengs was induced to denominate it a melancholy school; nor did it excel in its drapery, from which arose the saying, that the drapery of figures appeared to be fashioned with economy in Florence. ”