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(674, p. 167), with one of Botticelli's (I. 915, p. 31): how great is the difference between them! Well, the sea tends to induce in us great respect for the whole human body; for its limbs, as much as for its tongue or its wit. . . . To put the helm up at the right moment is the beginning of all cunning, and for that we need arm and eye;—not tongue. And with this respect for the body as such, comes also the sailor's preference of massive beauty in bodily form. The landsmen, among their roses and orange-blossoms, and chequered shadows of twisted vine, may well please themselves with pale faces, and finely drawn eyebrows and fantastic braiding of hair. But from the sweeping glory of the sea we learn to love another kind of beauty; broad-breasted; level-browed, like the horizon;-thighed and shouldered like the billows;footed like their stealing foam;-bathed in clouds of golden hair like their sunsets." Then further, "this ocean-work is wholly adverse to any morbid conditions of sentiment. Reverie, above all things, is forbidden by Scylla and Charybdis. By the dogs and the depths, no dreaming! The first thing required of us is presence of mind. Neither love, nor poetry, nor piety, must ever so take up our thoughts as to make us slow or unready." Herein will be found the source of a notable distinction between the treatment of sacred subjects by Venetian painters and all others. The first Venetian artists began with asceticism, just as the Florentines did; "always, however, delighting in more massive and deep colour than other religious painters. They are especially fond of saints who have been cardinals, because of their red hats, and they sunburn all their hermits into splendid russet brown" (see Octagon, 768, p. 193). Then again, through all enthusiasm they retain a supreme common sense. Look back, for instance, from the religious pictures in this room, from Titian's "Holy Family" (635, p. 143), or Cima's Madonna" (634, p. 178), to those of the Umbrians, which we have just left. The Umbrian religion is something apart from the world, the Venetian is of it. The religion of the Venetian painters is as real as that of Fra Angelico. But it was the faith not of humble men or of mystics, not of profound thinkers or ecstatic visionaries, so much as of

courtiers and statesmen, of senators and merchants, for whom religion was not a thing by itself but a part and parcel of ordinary life. "Throughout the rest of Italy, piety had become abstract, and opposed theoretically to worldly life; hence the Florentine and Umbrian painters generally separated their saints from living men. They delighted in imagining scenes of spiritual perfectness ;-Paradises, and companies of the redeemed at the judgment;-glorified meetings of martyrs ;—madonnas surrounded by circles of angels. If, which was rare, definite portraitures of living men were introduced, these real characters formed a kind of chorus or attendant company, taking no part in the action. At Venice all this was reversed, and so boldly as at first to shock, with its seeming irreverence, a spectator accustomed to the formalities and abstractions of the socalled sacred schools. The madonnas are no more seated apart on their thrones, the saints no more breathe celestial air. They are on our own plain ground-nay, here in our houses with us." Cima places the Madonna in his own country-side, whilst at Venice itself Tintoret paints Paradise as the decoration for the hall of the Greater Council of the State. The religion of the Venetian School was not less sincere than that of others, but it was less formal, less didactic; for Venice was constantly at feud with the popes, and here we come to the last circumstance which need be noticed as determining the characteristics of the school. "Among Italian cities Venice was unique. She alone was tranquil in her empire, unimpeded in her constitutional development, independent of Church interference, undisturbed by the cross purposes and intrigues of the despots, inhabited by merchants who were princes, and by a freeborn people who had never seen war at their gates. The serenity of undisturbed security, the luxury of wealth amassed abroad and liberally spent at home, gave a physiognomy of ease and proud self-confidence to all her edifices. . . . The conditions of Florence stimulated mental energy and turned the face of the soul inwards. Those of Venice inclined the individual to accept life as he found it" (Symonds, iii. 353). Hence the ideal of Venetian painting

was "stateliness and power; high intercourse with kingly and beautiful humanity, proud thoughts, or splendid pleasures; throned sensualities; and ennobled appetites."

Lastly, we may trace the current of these ideas in the historical development of the school, which may be divided, like other schools, into three main periods. First we have

the Giottesque or heroic period, or, as it should in the case of Venice be called, "the Vivarini epoch, bright, innocent, more or less elementary, entirely religious art, reaching from 1400-1480" (see farther on p. 154). Next comes the Bellini epoch, sometimes classic and mythic as well as religious, 1480-1520. In this period Venetian art is "entirely characteristic of her calm and brave statesmanship, her modest and faithful religion." "Bright costumes, distinct and sunny landscapes, broad backgrounds of architecture, large skies, polished armour, gilded cornices, young faces of fisher-boys and country girls, grave faces of old men brown with sea-wind and sunlight, withered faces of women hearty in a hale old age, the strong manhood of Venetian senators, the dignity of patrician ladies, the gracefulness of children, the rosy whiteness and amber-coloured tresses of the daughters of the Adriatic and the lagoons— these are the source of inspiration to the Venetians of the second period. . . . Among the loveliest motives in the altarpieces of this period are the boy-angels playing flutes and mandolines beneath the Madonna on the steps of her throne. They are more earthly than Fra Angelico's melodists, and yet they are not precisely of human lineage. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that they strike the keynote of Venetian devotion, at once real and devoid of pietistic rapture" (Symonds, iii. 363.) Thirdly comes the epoch of "supremely powerful art corrupted by taint of death,” 1520-1600.

This final transition may perhaps best be seen by tracing the similar progress in the technical feature which distinguishes the Venetian painters. They are the school of colour. Their speciality consists in seeing that "shadow is not an absence of colour, but is, on the contrary, necessary to the full presence of colour; every

K

colour in painting must be a shadow to some brighter colour, and a light to some darker one-all the while being a positive colour itself. And the great splendour of the Venetian School arises from their having seen and held from the beginning this great fact-that shadow is as much colour as light, often much more. In Titian's fullest red the lights are pale rose-colour, passing into white-the shadows warm deep crimson. In Veronese's most splendid orange the lights are pale, the shadows crocus colour. . . . Observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact. It is an absolute fact that shadows are as much colours as lights are; and whoever represents them by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the light, represents them falsely." But in the two earlier periods above specified, the Venetians are further "separated from other schools by their contentment with tranquil cheerfulness of light; by their never wanting to be dazzled. None of their lights are flashing or blinding; they are soft, winning, precious; lights of pearl, not of lime: only, you know, on this condition they cannot have sunshine: their day is the day of Paradise; they need no candles, neither light of the sun, in their cities; and everything is seen clear, as through crystal, far or near. This holds to the end of the fifteenth century. Then they begin to see that this, beautiful as it may be, is still a makebelieve light; that we do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in an atmosphere through which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. And then the chiaroscurists succeed in persuading them of the fact that there is mystery in the day as in the night, and show them how constantly to see truly, is to see dimly. And also they teach them the brilliancy of light, and the degree in which it is raised from the darkness; and instead of their sweet and pearly peace, tempt them to look for the strength of flame and coruscation of lightning." On the wall of this room to the right, as you face the door into Room VIII., are three pictures in which the whole process may be traced. First in Bellini's "St. Jerome" (694, p. 162) is the serene light of the Master of Peace. In another Bellini near it (726, p. 161) is a first twilight effect-such as Titian

afterwards developed into more solemn hues; whilst above them both is an example (1130, p. 160) of the light far withdrawn and the coils of shade of Tintoret (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch iii.; Guide to Venetian Academy; Oxford Lectures on Art, §§ 134, 173-177).

1098. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Bartolommeo Montagna (Venetian: died 1523). Montagna was born near Brescia and worked at Vicenza, but studied at Venice. He was a distinguished painter of his time, and some of his pictures-especially the great altar-piece now in the Brera at Milan-are worthy of Bellini or Carpaccio. There is sincere feeling in this "Virgin and Child,” in spite of a certain ungainliness; but neither it nor the companion picture (802) gives a fair idea of Montagna. 625. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

Il Moretto (Brescian: 1498-1555).

Of the Brescian, as of the Veronese School, nowhere out of Italy are there such good examples as in the National Gallery. "The dialect of the Brescians is very like that of their neighbours of Bergamo, but not so harsh and rugged (see 1203, p. 151); the character of the people, too, is more lively and frank, more given to show and swagger (Bresciani spacca-cantoni). The Brescians, wedged in between the Veronese and Bergamese, unite, to some extent, the manly energy of the latter with the greater vivacity and pliancy of the former" (Morelli, PP. 396, 397). The foundation of the Brescian School was laid by Vincenzo Foppa (see IX. 729, p. 198), whose pupil Il Moretto was. It is characteristic of the wide dispersion of the art gift in Italy that this Alessandro Bonvicino, nicknamed "Il Moretto,". -one of the greatest of portrait painters,—should have belonged entirely to a provincial city. He was born and educated at Brescia, where his father was a merchant; and with the exception of a very few pictures, he painted only for his native town and the province of Brescia, and it is there that nearly the whole work of his life is still to be found. Indeed he was little known beyond the frontiers of the Brescian district, and it is only during the last half century or so that his reputation has arisen. His nickname of "the Blackamoor" is particularly inappropriate to his style, which is distinguished for its silvery tones, "a cool, tender and harmonious scale of colour which has a peculiar charm, and is entirely his own" (Layard, ii. 577). This harmony of colour, which became characteristic of the Brescian School, may be observed also in his rival, Romanino.

The principal figure is St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). He was one of the most celebrated preachers of his time:

1 See Morelli, p. 393, who dismisses the idea of an original Vicentine School as one which I cannot be entertained at all."