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naturalistic school, which appears to have been inaugurated | by Masolino and Masaccio. Some few painters, such as Fra Angelico (see fig. 4) and his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli, produced more purely sacred and decorative work, following the lead of Orcagna. As Baron Rumohr has pointed out, the main bulk of the Florentine 15th-century painters may be divided into three groups with different characteristics. The first, including Masolino, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and their pupils, aimed especially at strong action, dramatic force, and passionate expression (see figs. 5 and 6). The second, including Baldovinetti, Rosselli, Ghirlandaio, and his pupils, are remarkable for realistic truth and vigorous individuality (see fig. 7). To the third belong Ghiberti, who began life as a painter, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, and his pupils Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, -a group largely influenced by the practice of the arts of the goldsmith and the sculptor. Signorelli, whose chief works are at Orvieto and

1

Monte Oliveto near

Siena, was remark- FIG. 10.-Baptism of Christ, by Piero della able for his know- Francesca (National Gallery.) ledge and masterly treatment of the nude (see fig. 8), and had much influence on the early development of Michelangelo, whose gigantic genius in later life produced the most original and powerful works that the modern world has seen (see fig. 9). Andrea del Sarto was one of the last artists of the golden age of painting in Florence; the soft beauty of his works is, however, often marred by a monotonous mannerism. To him are wrongly attributed many paintings by Puligo and other scholars,

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16th century the Umbrian school produced many painters of great importance grouped around number of different centres, such as Gubbio, where Ottaviano Nelli lived; San Severino, with its two Lorenzos; Fabriano, famed for its able masters Allegretto Nuzi and Gentile da Fabriano; Foligno, whence Niccolo took his name; and above all Borgo San Sepolcro, where Piero della Francesca was born. Piero was one of the most charming of all painters for his delicate modelling, tender colour, and beauty of expression (see fig. 10). His masterpiece, a large altar-painting of the Madonna enthroned, with standing saints at the side and in fronta kneeling

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portrait of Duke Fed- FIG. 12.-Centre of triptych, by Perugino, painted for the Certosa near Pavia. (Na tional Gallery.)

erigo da Montefeltro, in the Brera gallery,

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Umbria.

FIG. 11.-The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. (Gallery at Perugia.)

who imitated his style with various degrees of closeness. The 16th century in Florence was a period of the most rapid decline and was for long chiefly remarkable for its feeble caricatures of Michelangelo's inimitable style.

Between the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 1 It is interesting to note how Ant. Pollaiuolo's fine figure of St Sebastian in the National Gallery (London) resembles the statue of the same saint in Lucca cathedral by Matteo Civitale.

FIG. 13.-The Madonna between St John Baptist and St Mary Magdalene, by Andrea Mantegna, on canvas. (National Gallery.)

is, strange to say, attributed to his pupil Fra Carnovale.2

2 The attribution of this magnificent picture to Fra Carnovale rests wholly on a statement, evidently erroneous, of Pungileoni; and hence many other works by Piero, such as the St Michael in the National Gallery, are wrongly given to Carnovale. It is doubtful whether any genuine picture by the latter is now known; if the Brera picture were really by him he would not only be greater than his master Piero, but would be one of the chief painters of the 15th century.

Padua.

Arezzo.

Venice.

Gentile da Fabriano worked in the purely religious and richly decorative style that characterized Fra Angelico at Perugia. Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (see fig. 11) and Bonfigli prepared the way for Perugino (see fig. 12) and his pupils Pinturicchio, Raphael, Lo Spagna, and others. Timoteo Viti was another Umbrian painter of great ability, whose portrait by Raphael in black and red chalk is one of the most beautiful of the drawings in the Print Room of the British Museum.

The Paduan school is chiefly remarkable for the great name of Andrea Mantegna, the pupil of Squarcione; his firm and sculpturesque drawing is combined with great beauty of colour and vigorous expression (see fig. 13). His pupil Montagna also studied under Gian. Bellini at Venice. Andrea Mantegna influenced and was influenced by the Venetian school; to him are attributed many of the early paintings of his brother-in-law Gian. Bellini, such as the Vatican Pietà, and other works more remarkable for vigour than for grace.

The school of Arezzo was early in its development. Margaritone, who is absurdly overpraised by his fellowtownsman Vasari, was an artist of the most feeble

Crivelli, 1476. (National Gallery.)

abilities. In the 14th cen- FIG. 14.-Centre of retable, by tury Arezzo produced such able painters as Spinello di Luca, Niccolo di Gerini, and Lorenzo di Bicci. In the 15th century it possessed no native school worth recording.

Venice did not come into prominence till the 15th century; the Vivarini ramily of Murano were at work about the middle of it, and were perhaps influenced by the German style of a contemporary painter from Cologne, known as Johannes Alemannus, who had settled in Venice. Some years later the technical methods of Flanders were introduced by Antonello of Messina, who is said to have learnt the secret of an oil medium from the Van Eycks.1 Crivelli, an able though mannered painter of

the second half of FIG. 15.-Portrait of Doge Loredano, by Gian. the 15th century, Bellini. (National Gallery.) adhered to an earlier type than his contemporaries (see fig. 14). Gian. Bellini is one of the chief glories of

1 Autouello certainly possessed technical knowledge beyond that of his contemporaries in Venice, namely, that of glazing in transparent oil colours over a tempera ground, and he must either in Italy or in Flanders have come in contact with some painter of the Flemish school; many of the chief Flemish painters visited Italy in the 15th century.

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retto also painted some fine large altar-pieces, remarkable for their delicate silver-grey tones and refined modelling. Romanino was an extremely able painter of frescos as well as of easel pictures.

The school of Verona, which existed from the 13th to the 17th century, contains few names of highest importance; except that of Pisanello, the chief

were painters of the FIG. 18.-Portrait of a Tailor, by Mcroni. end of the 15th and (National Gallery.) the early part of the 16th century, as Domenico and Francesco Morone, Bonsignori, Girolamo dai Libri, and Cavaz

2 It should be noted that there are a large number of forged signatures of Gian. Bellini, many of them attached to their own pictures by his pupils, such as Catena and Rondinelli.

Verona.

Ferrara.

Bologna.

Modena

and Parma.

zola. Paul Veronese, though at first he painted in his native town, soon attached himself to the Venetian school. Ferrara possessed a small native school in the 15th and 16th centuries, Cosimo Tura, Ercole Grandi, Dosso Dossi, and Garofalo being among the chief artists. The paintings of this school are often vigorous in drawing, but rather mannered, and usually somewhat hard in colour. After

FIG. 19.-Pietà, by Francia. (National Gallery.) 1470 there was an intimate connexion between the schools of Ferrara and Bologna.

The Bologna school existed, though not in a very characteristic form, in the 14th century. Francia and Lorenzo Costa of Ferrara were its chief painters at the end of the 15th century (see fig. 19). It was, however, in the 16th and 17th centuries that Bologna took a leading place as a school of Italian painting, the beginning of which dates from about 1480, when several able painters from Ferrara settled in Bologna. The three Caracci, Guido (see fig. 20), Domeni

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chino, and Guercino were the most FIG. 20.-Ecce Homo, by admired painters of their time, and continued to be esteemed far beyond their real value till about the middle of the 19th century. Since then, however, the strong reaction in favour of earlier art has gone to the other extreme, and the real merits of the Bolognese school, such as their powerful drawing and skilful though visibly scholastic composition, are now usually overlooked.

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The small school of Cremona occupies only a subordi- Cremona nate position. Boccaccino was its ablest painter; his rare works are remarkable for conscientious finish, combined with some provincial mannerisın.

In the 15th and early part of the 16th century Milan Milan had one of the most important schools in Italy. Its first member of any note was Vincenzo Foppa, who was painting in 1457 and was the founder of the early school. Ambrogio Bor. gognone (born c. 1455) was an artist of great merit and strong religious sentiment. He followed in the footsteps of Foppa, and his pictures are remarkable for the calm beauty of the faces, and for their delicate colour (see fig. 22), which recalls the manner of Piero della Francesca. Leonardo

da Vinci, though trained FIG. 22.-The Mystic Marriage of St

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in Florence, may be said

to have created the later Milanese school.

Catherine of Alexandria and St Catherine of Siena to Christ, by Ambrogio Borgognone. (National Gallery.)

Fig. 23 shows one of the very few pictures by his hand which still exist. The marvellous and almost universal genius of Leo

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nardo caused his influence to be powerfully tended, not only among his immediate pupils, but also among almost all the Lombard painters of his own and the succeeding generation. His closest followers were Salaino, Luini, Cesare da Sesto, Beltraffio, and Marco d'Oggiono, and in a lesser degree Andrea Solario, Gaudenzio Ferrari, and Sodoma, who introduced a new style! of painting into FIG.

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Siena. Solario

23.-The Madonna with the Rocks, by Leonardo da Vinci. (National Gallery.)

also studied in Flanders, and in Venice under Gian. Bellini, so that a curiously composite style is visible in some of his magnificent portraits (see fig. 24). Most of the pictures and many drawings usually attributed to Da Vinci are really the work of his pupils and imitators. Luini, in his magnificent frescos, was one of the last painters who preserved the religious dignity and simplicity of the older mediæval schools. Fresco painting was practised by the Milanese after it had been generally abandoned

elsewhere.

Rome.

Rome has always been remarkable for its absence of native talent in any of the fine arts, and nearly all the members of the so-called Roman school came from other cities. This school at first consisted of the personal pupils of Raphael,Fran. Penni, Da Imola, Giulio Romano, and Del Vaga. Sassoferrato and Carlo Maratta were feeble but very popular painters in the 17th century.

Naples. The early history of the

Neapolitan school is mostly

mythical; it had no indi- Fig. 24.-Portrait of a Venetian

Senator, by Andrea Solario. (National Gallery)

vidual existence till the 16th century, and then chiefly in the person of Caravaggio. During the 15th century inany works of the Van Eycks and other Flemish painters were imported into Naples; some of these were afterwards claimed by the vanity of native writers as paintings by early Neapolitan artists, for whom imaginary names and histories were invented. The Spaniard Ribera, Salvator Rosa, and Giordano were its chief members in the 17th century.

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van Eyck, who were FIG. 27.-Portrait of an Unknown Lady, by Holbein. (The Hague Gallery.) painting at the be

ginning of the 15th century, were artists of the very highest rank; with their unrivalled technical skill, their exquisite finish, and the splendour of their colour, they produced works which in some respects even surpassed those of any of the Italian painters. Probably no other artists ever lavished time and patient labour quite to the same extent to which Jan van Eyck did upon some of his works, such

as the Arnolfini and FIG. 28.-Portrait, by Jan van Eyck; 1433. (National Gallery.) other portraits in the National Gallery (see fig. 28), and the Madonna with the

FIG. 29. The Entombment of Christ, by Van der Weyden the elder painted in tempera on unprimed linen. (National Gallery.) kneeling Donor in the Louvre. This last is one of the

The Var Eycks and their school.

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Later

He

loveliest pictures in the world, both as a figure painting | trait of Queen Mary of England at Madrid, and one of a
and from its exquisite miniature landscape and town in youth of the Farnese family at Parma, are real masterpieces
the distance, all glowing with the warm light of the setting of portraiture.
sun. The elder Van der Weyden was a most able pupil of spent some time in
the Van Eycks; he occasionally practised a very different England. The Breu-
technical method from that usually employed in Flanders, ghel family in the
that is to say, he painted in pure tempera colours on un- 16th and 17th cen-
primed linen, the flesh tints especially being laid on ex- turies produced feeble
tremely thin, so that the texture of the linen remains works finished with
unhidden. Other colours, such as a smalto blue used for microscopic detail.
draperies, are applied in greater body, and the whole is Rubens and his pupil
left uncovered by any varnish. A very perfect example Vandyck in the 17th
of this exists in the National Gallery (see fig. 29). The century were among
special method used
the greatest portrait
with such success by
painters the world
the Van Eycks and
has ever seen (see
their school was to
figs. 31 and 32), and
paint the whole pic-
had many able fol-
ture carefully in tem-
pera and then to
glaze it over in trans-
parent oil colours;
the use of oil 1 as a
medium was com-
mon in the 13th
century and even
earlier (see MURAL
DECORATION). To
the school of the
Van Eycks belong
a number of other

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very talented paint- FIG. 30.-St Mary Magdalene, attributed to
ers, who inherited
the younger Van der Weyden. (National

much of their mar- Gallery.)
vellous delicacy of finish and richness of colour; the chief
of these were Memling, Van der Meire, and the younger
Van der Weyden, to whom is attributed No. 654 in the
National Gallery (see fig. 30). The colour of this lovely
picture is magnificent beyond all description. Quintin
Matsys (Massys) and
Gheerardt David also
produced works of
great beauty and ex-
traordinary finished
execution.2

At the beginning
Flemish of the 16th century
Flemish art began to

art./

lose rapidly in vigour,
a weaker style being.
substituted under the
influence of Italy. To
this period belong
Mabuse, Van Orley,
and Patinir, who ap-
pear to have been
special admirers of
Raphael's latest man-
ner. In the latter half
of the century Antonij

Mor, usually known FIG. 1.-Portrait by Rubens, known as the
as Antonio Moro, was Chapeau de Poil." (National Gallery.)
a portrait painter of the very highest rank. A por-

1 Elaborate directions for painting in oil are given by the German
monk Theophilus (Sched. div. art., i. 37, 38), who wrote in the 12th
century.

2 Though the elder Van der Weyden and other Flemish painters of his time visited Italy, the Italian style of painting appears to have had very little influence on their vigorous works. The weaker Flemish painters of the 16th century, on the contrary, were close imitators of the Italians and produced pictures of a rather feebly pretty type.

lowers on the Con

tinent and in Eng- FIG. 32.-Portrait of Cornelius Van der Geest,
land.
by Vandyck or Rubens. (National Gallery.)

4. Dutch.

This school was chiefly remarkable for its painters of Dutch genre subjects, often treated with a very ignoble realism, school especially by the various members of the Teniers family. Rembrandt, the greatest painter of the school, developed a quite original style, remarkable for the force shown in his effective treatment

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of light and shade.
The vigorous life and
technical skill shown
in some of his por-
traits have never been
surpassed (see fig.
33). As a rule, how-
ever, he cared but
little for colour, and
used the etching
needle with special
enjoyment and dex-
terity. Terburg, Ger-
hard Dou (Douw), and
Wouwerman had more
sense of beauty, and

worked with the most

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miniature-like deli- FIG. 33.-Portrait of an Old Woman, by cacy. Another school Rembrandt. (National Gallery.) excelled in landscape, especially Ruysdael and Hobbema (see figs. 34 and 35). Vandevelde was remarkable for

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