Domenichino

“ He was born in 1581, and, after studying under a Flemish painter, passed into the school of the Carracci. While yet a very young man, Domenichino was invited to Rome, where he soon earned a high reputation, competing successfully with his former fellow-scholar, Guido. Domenichino's 'Flagellation of St Andrew,' and 'Communion of St Jerome,' in payment of which he only received about five guineas; his 'Martyrdom of St Sebastian,' and his 'Four Evangelists,' which are among his masterpieces, were all painted in Rome, and remain in Rome. ”

“ Reclining on a couch, in the centre of the picture, her hand pressed on her bosom, her dying eyes raised to heaven, the saint is breathing her last; while female forms, of exquisite beauty and innocence, are kneeling around, or bending over her. The noble figure of an old man, whose clasped hands and bent brow seem to bespeak a father's affection, appears on one side; and lovely children, in all the playful graces of unconscious infancy, as usual in Domenichino's paintings, by contrast heighten, yet relieve, the deep pathos of the scene. ”

“ The general opinion is in favour of the Pupil, but if in the economy of the whole Domenichino surpasses his master, he appears to me greatly inferior both in the character and expression of the hero. Domenichino has represented Piety scarcely struggling with decay, Agostino triumphant over it, his saint becomes in the place where he is, a superior being, and is inspired by the approaching god: that of Domenichino seems divided between resignation, mental and bodily imbecility and desire. The saint of Agostino is a lion, that of Domenichino a lamb. ”

“ It sounds rather brutal perhaps to say that, when I came back into the clamorous little piazza, the sight of the peasants swilling down their sour wine appealed to me more than the masterpieces--Murray calls them so--of the famous Bolognese. It amounts after all to saying that I prefer Teniers to Domenichino; which I am willing to let pass for the truth. ”

“ On the other hand, I never can turn to the Domenichino without being thrilled with emotion, and touched with awe. The story is told with the most admirable skill, and with the most exquisite truth and simplicity: the interest is one and the same; it all centres in the person of the expiring saint; and the calm benignity of the officiating priest is finely contrasted with the countenances of the group who support the dying form of St. Jerome: anxious tenderness, grief, hope, and fear, are expressed with such deep pathos and reality, that the spectator forgets admiration in sympathy ”

“ Had Domenichino enjoyed the same advantages of party as the Caracci in Bologna, which he well deserved, he would soon have triumphed over his adversaries, by proving the distinction between imitation and servility, [31] and that if his works were longer in being brought to perfection than his rival's, their reputation would be proportionally durable. The public is an equitable judge; but a good cause is not sufficient without the advantage of many voices to sanction it. Domenichino, timid, retired, and master of few pupils, was destitute of a party equal to his cause. ”

“ Domenichino's large picture of the Angel shielding Innocence from a Demon pleases me, as all his pictures do—but not perfectly: the devil in the corner, with his fork, and hoofs, and horns, shocks my taste as a ludicrous and vulgar idea, far removed from poetry; but the figure of the angel stretching a shield over the infant, is charming. There are also two fine Claudes, two Holy Families, by Raffaelle, in his sweetest style; and one by Correggio, scarcely less beautiful. ”

“ But Annibale Caracci, who observed his faculties with more attention, predicted that the apparent slowness of Domenichino’s genius would in time produce what would be an honour to the art of painting. When his early productions had brought him into notice, he studied with extreme application, and made such advance as to raise his works into a comparison with those of the most admired masters of the time. ”

“ Andrew, contains the two famous rival frescoes of Guido and Domenichino. Guido has represented St. Andrew kneeling in reverent thankfulness at first sight of the cross on which he was to suffer; Domenichino—a more painful subject—the flagellation of the saint. Of these paintings Annibale Caracci observed that "Guido's was the painting of the Master; but Domenichino's the painting of the scholar who knew more than the master." The beautiful group of figures in the corner, where a terrified child is hiding its face in its mother's dress, is introduced in several other pictures of Domenichino. ”

“ Domenichino was employed by the Cardinal Borghese, to paint in competition with Guido, the cele [Pg 124] brated frescos in the church of S. Gregorio at Rome. Both artists painted the same subject, but the former represented the Scourging of St. Andrew, and the latter St. Andrew led away to the Gibbet. Lanzi says it is commonly reported that an aged woman, accompanied by a little boy, was seen long wistfully engaged in viewing Domenichino's picture, showing it part by part to the boy, and next, turning to that of Guido, painted directly opposite, she gave it a cursory glance and passed on. ”

“ Antiphates decided that an endeavour to find the cave should be made when the moon next became full. He would fain himself have aided in the search; but Fidunia, anxious to have her mind steadfastly set on the one object of the expedition, persuaded him to remain within the palace, and to allow her to go forth guarded only by Domenichino.
Domenichino secretly hired, as for his own use, one of the boats belonging to a fisherman of Spera. He carefully questioned the men of the place about their island. ”

“ Either send me efficient help at once, or let the Venetians know that we shall not be ready till the first week in July.”
The Gadfly carried the letter to Gemma and, while she read it, sat frowning at the floor and stroking the cat's fur the wrong way.
“This is bad,” she said. “We can hardly keep the Venetians waiting for three weeks.”
“Of course we can't; the thing is absurd. Domenichino m-might unders-s-stand that. We must follow the lead of the Venetians, not they ours.”
“I don't see that Domenichino is to blame; he has evidently done his best, and he can't do impossibilities.” ”

“ In their immediate scholars, the lecturer seems little disposed to see fairly their several excellences. They are out of the view of his bias. They are not Michael Angelesque. His judgment of Domenichino—a painter who greatly restored the simplicity and severity of the elder schools, and greatly surpassed his masters—is an instance of blindness to a power in art which we would almost call new, that is very strange to see. "Domenichino, more obedient than the rest to his masters, aimed at the beauty of the antique, the expression of Raphael, the vigour of Annibal, the colour of Ludovico ”

“ It should not, however, be forgotten, that the best works of Guercino, the later pictures of Annibale Carracci, and the important works of Domenichino and Salvator Rosa belong to this period.
The second school was that of the Naturalists, who professed to study Nature alone, representing with brutal realism her repulsive aspects. Naples was the centre of these painters, and the poisoning of Domenichino and many other dark and terrible deeds have been attributed to them. ”

“ The former [Pg 61] is a chaste and beautiful picture, full of feeling and sweetly coloured; but the vicinity of Domenichino's magnificent creation throws it rather into shade. Two unfinished pictures upon which Guido was employed at the time of his death are preserved in the Capitol: one is the Bacchus and Ariadne, so often engraved and copied; the other, a single figure, the size of life, represents the Soul of the righteous man ascending to heaven. ”

“ Domenichino was less distinguished for invention than for any other branch of his profession. Of this, his picture of the Rosary at Bologna affords an instance, which neither at that period nor since has been fully understood by the public; and it is known not to have pleased even his own friends, which led the author to regret its production. Diffident thenceforward of his powers in this department, he often borrowed the ideas of others; imitated Agostino in his St. Jerome, the S. Rocco, of Annibal, in his almsgiving of St. Cecilia; and even other less eminent artists ”

“ His denunciation of the badness of Domenichino's art, though expressed with such a clangor of exaggeration, fairly represents the feeling of modern students. 'The man,' he says, 'who painted the Madonna del Rosario and Martyrdom of S. Agnes in the gallery of Bologna, is palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right in any field, way, or kind whatsoever.... This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping and hasty as it may appear. From the weaknesses of an artist, or failures, however numerous, we have no right to conjecture his total inability ”

“ The whole district was swarming with spies; and Domenichino, to whom the Gadfly had intrusted the ammunition, sent into Florence a messenger with an urgent appeal for either help or extra time. The Gadfly had insisted that the work should be finished by the middle of June; and what with the difficulty of conveying heavy transports over bad roads, and the endless hindrances and delays caused by the necessity of continually evading observation, Domenichino was growing desperate. ”

“ Few think of the patient labour and long training involved in the greatest works of the artist. They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how great difficulty has this ease been acquired. “You charge me fifty sequins,” said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, “for a bust that cost you only ten days’ labour.” “You forget,” said the artist, “that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust in ten days.” Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, “I am continually painting it within myself.” ”

“ This group is not enough [138] distinguished, as it falls in with a heap of dead saints. Three women and a child form a pretty group on the right-hand side. The upper part seems a separate composition, and very likely is done by a scholar of Domenichino’s. Ld. Holland read me a passage out of a letter from Charles Fox, from which it appears that he reckons this picture almost the best in Italy, and the masterpiece of Domenichino. ”

“ Then, when you reach the town, you go with the rest of them into the marketplace, in front of the Cardinal's palace.”
“Oh, he manages to live in a p-palace, then, in s-spite of being a saint?”
“He lives in one wing of it, and has turned the rest into a hospital. Well, you all wait there for him to come out and give his benediction, and Domenichino will come up with his basket and say: 'Are you one of the pilgrims, father?' and you answer: 'I am a miserable sinner.' Then he puts down his basket and wipes his face with his sleeve, and you offer him six soldi for a rosary.” ”

“ There are examples of Domenichino in the National Gallery.
I shall close my long list of the great Italian painters of the past with one who was quite apart from and opposed to the Carracci school, and whose triumphs and failures were essentially his own. Salvator Rosa, born in 1615 near Naples, was the son of an architect. In opposition to his father Salvator Rosa became a painter. Having succeeded in selling his sketches to a celebrated buyer, the bold young Neapolitan started for Rome at the age of twenty years ”

“ There the persecution against him became far more shameful than in any previous instance. The notorious so-called “Cabal of Naples”—the painters Corenzio, Ribera and Caracciolo—leagued together as they were to exclude all alien competition, plagued and decried the Bolognese artist in all possible ways; for instance, on returning in the morning to his fresco work, he would find not infrequently that someone had rubbed out the performance of the previous day. Perpetual worry is believed to have brought the life of Domenichino to a close ”

“ Parmigiano, the eminent painter, was full of the wildness of genius. He became mad after the philosopher's stone, jilting [96] art as a mistress, though his eager creditors forced him to set once more to work, though to little effect.
Great painters, like great writers, have had their peculiar modes of producing their effects. Thus Domenichino was accustomed to assume and enact before the canvas the passion and character he intended to depict with the brush. While engaged upon the "Martyrdom of Saint Andrew," Caracci, a brother painter, came into his studio and found him in a violent passion. ”

“ We can trace the influence through Poussin’s masterpieces, and had France been wise enough to understand her greatest painter, her academic tradition, which was promoted in Poussin’s name, might have taken a much more fruitful course than it actually did.
Fig. 325. Domenichino. Diana and her Nymphs.—Borghese, Rome.
469An ill fate finally took Domenichino to Naples. There he found the ruffianly local painters banded against every foreigner, and in particular he met the systematic animosity of the truculent Spaniard, Ribera. Outright terrorism alternated with petty persecution. ”