Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/442

 PAINTING

400-

PAINTING

tn reality no corner of Franconia, Suabia, Alsaoe, or the Tyrol remained sterile. It was a popular art, lo- calized, sentimental, and extremely incorrect, often coarse in form, but refined in soul even to afTectation, and which in its pious imager^' expressed better than any other certain ideas of sympathy and tenderness. There is nothing more thrilling than the Passion of Hans Multescher nor more appealing than the altar- piece of St. Wolfgang by the Tyrole.se Michel Pacher. Elsewhere in Germany there were other admirable stylists, such as Hans Baldung and Conrad Witz at Fribourg and Basle, foreshadowing the perfection of Holbein.

But the great Albrecht Durer was to express all that was most intimate in Germanic religion, and beautiful as were his pictures he expressed the deepest meanings in his prints. This more direct and less expensive art, produced for the masses, satisfied the German de- mands for popularity and individuality. To this Diirer's genius was wholly devoted, and art does not possess more moving masterpieces than the ".Apoca- lypse" series (1498), the "Life of the Blessed Virgin" (1506), the "Little Passion" (1.509), and the "Great Passion" (1510). But side by side wnth this contem- plative, intimate, and noble spiritual art was a second tendency, no less thoughtful, but impassioned, violent, dramatic, and which went to extremes in the search for expression and the mania for the pathetic. It was inspired by the mystery plays. All technical progress and perfection of realization were utilized to express emotion. It began with Van der Weyden, Memling did not escape it in his Munich picture of the "Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin", Massys painted blood- besprinkled Holy Faces and Magdalens with reddened and streaming eyes, Diirer's "Passions" terrify by their intensity of sorrow, but the most tragic of all was Mathias Griinewald, whose terrible "Crucifix-ions" at Colmar and Stuttgart are like the nightmare of a bar- barian visionary. This love of the horrible became a genre. Infernal fantasies, the dreams of an unhealthy imagination, haunt the thoughts of ,Ierome Hosch, while, on the other hand, idyllic insipidity and chililish- ness appear in the "Holy Family" and "I'liglit into Egj'pt" of Cranach and Patenier. At this juncture came the Reformation, which destroyed painting in Germany.

IV. The Cinque Cento and the Later Schools. — A. Tuscany, Umhria, and Rome. — The two tendencies observed in the North, naturalism and pathos, devel- oped also in contemporary Italy. Protestant criti- cism has greatly exaggerated the irreligion of the Renaissance. Undoubtedly some painters, absorbed by problems of expression and the study of atmos- phere, models, and perspective, neglected religious emotions. At Florence especially there were a num- ber of artists who saw in their craft only a question of form. Form, as a matter of fact, owes much of its progress to the studies of Castagno, Paolo Uccello, the PoUaiuoli, Andrea Verrocchio, and Baldovinetti, but their learning, importance, and great services cannot conceal the poverty of their art and the nar- rowness of their ideas; they were professors and use- ful pedagogues, but neither poets nor true artists. On the other hand the Renai-ssance was the period when the love of ideas, so unnatural to Italian thought, manifested itself by most important works. The decoration of the Sistine Chapel (c. 1480) at the com- mand of a Franciscan pope, is perhaps the most clearly symbolical assemblage of Italian art. On the walls the life of Moses is portrayed parallel with that of Christ. Thirty years later Michelangelo depicted on the ceiling the Delivery of Israel, the Prophets, the Sibyls, and the Ancestors of Christ. The Apparta- inento Borgia was decorated by Pinturicchio with didactic frescoes in imitation of the Spanish chapel; Filippino Lippi represented at the Minerv.-i the "Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas"; while Perugino

at the Cambio of Perugia and Raphael in his xlame produced the masterpieces of the painting of ideas.

It would be vain to deny that the spirit of the Renaissance possessed irreligious tendencies. Cer- tainly such a work as that of Ghirlandajo in the choir of S. Maria Novella is singularly secular in tone. Even in more serious works, such as Leonardo's won- derful "Last Supper" at Milan, it is readily seen that despite its sublime beauty it was not intended merely to edify. However, these matters must be treated with reserve, owing to the delicate nature of questions of religious sincerity. We can hardly assert that the Dominicans for whom these works were executed were poorer judges than we, nor is it clear by what right we connect religious meaning with certain archaic forms. In this the Church has judged with more delicacy, never having restricted a sentiment to certain forms, but having left it free to create that most fitting to it and to speak to each age the language which will be best understood. The fact is that at no period was religious activity so fruitful; no other has bequeathed to us so many altar-pieces, oratory pictures, Madonnas and saints. It was the age of countless pictures for pious confraternities, and it is quite probable that the artist, who was so often a member of the confrater- nity, infused something of his heart into his work. At Siena especially such charming painters as Vec- chietta or Benvenuto di Giovanni were no less remark- able for their piety than their talents. Perugino, it is true, has been called an Atheist, but of this we have no certainty, nor do we know Vasari's authority for the statement. On the other hand we note in him (before he lapsed into mechanical production) a reaction against dryness and intellectualism. (See Perdgino.) Botticelli and Filippino Lippi show a tendency to the nervous pathos of Roger van der Weyden and Quentin Massys. An extremely ascetic and terrifying spirit distinguishes Luca Signorelli.

More worthy of study are the works of Crivelli and Cosimo Tura at \'erona and Ferrara, showing a love for depicting suffering w-hich borders on caricature. .\t Bologna, on the other hand, the productions of Costa and Francia are marked by a more temperate religious emotion, while a group of Milanese painters including I-'oppa and Borgognone upheld, even amid Leonardo's influence, the mystical traditions of the ancient school. The appearance of new motifs based on devotion to the Precious Blood, to the Holy Fam- ily, the maternity of the Blessed Virgin, etc., indicated the continuous enriching of religious life and the con- stant activity of Christian piety. Undoubtedly when Leonardo painted the "St. Anne" of the Louvre, and Raphael his "Madonna of the Goldfinch", they did not aim at portraying ascetic mortification, but rather a serene confidence in the beauty and nobility of life. It is difficult to stamp this optimism as an error.

B. Venice and the Schools of Northern Italy. — The Venetian school has been greatly misjudged from a religious stantlpoint. Because the Venetians could paint better than any others, and because they set great value on the charm of colouring, they have been charged with paganism and immorality. Quite the contrary is true. Two very different traditions are evident in Venetian painting: the first that of the popular painters employed by the confraternities, the guilds, and the scuolr; the other that of the official painters in the service of the State, the patricians, and the convents. The former school, which was that of Lazzaro Bastiani Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, and Diana, filled the parishes of Venice and the Islands with brilfiant and delightfully ingenuous works. Noth- ing could be more charming than Carpaccio's paints ings, such as his Legend of St. Ursula or the oratory pictures in San Giorgio de' Schiavoni. The second and more scholarly school, proceeding from the Viva- rini and the great Paduan master, Andrea Mantegna,