Part 11 (2/2)

LECTURE VI

DESIGN IN THE FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING

181 In the first of these lectures, I stated to you their subject, as the investigation of the engraved work of a group of , as a means of popular address, was above all precious, because their art was distinctively didactic

Some of my hearers must be aware that, of late years, the assertion that art should be didactic has been clamorously and violently derided by the countless crowd of artists who have nothing to represent, and of writers who have nothing to say; and that the contrary assertion--that art consists only in pretty colors and fine words,--is accepted, readily enough, by a public which rarely pauses to look at a picture with attention, or read a sentence with understanding

182 Gentle art yet, nor can be, without didactic purpose The leaders of the strong schools are, and y, or preachers of the moral law I need not tell you that it was as teachers of theology on the walls of the Vatican that the masters hose names you are reat their faine, ever been materially assisted in your preparation for the schools either of philosophy or divinity by Raphael's 'School of Athens,' by Raphael's 'Theology,'--or by Michael Angelo's 'Judgment' My task, to-day, is to set before you son of the first Master of the works in the Sistine Chapel; and I believe that, fro, you will, even in the hour which I ask you now to give, learn what may be of true use to you in all your future labor, whether in Oxford or elsewhere

183 You have doubtless, in the course of these lectures, been occasionally surprised byof Holbein and Sandro Botticelli, as Reformers, in the same tone of respect, and with the saency, hich it is usual to speak of Luther and Savonarola You have been accusto and sculpture spoken of as supporting or enforcing Church doctrine; but never as refor it Whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, you have admitted what in the one case you held to be the abuse of painting in the furtherance of idolatry,--in the other, its a nized,--the Protestant his ally,--or the Catholic his enereat painters of the fifteenth century The Protestant was, in ar to understand the aid offered to hi; and in all cases too terrified to believe in it He drove the gift-bringing Greek with imprecations from his sectarian fortress, or received him within it only on the condition that he should speak no word of religion there

184 On the other hand, the Catholic, in most cases too indolent to read, and, in all, too proud to dread, the rebuke of the refor painters, confused them with the crowd of his old flatterers, and little noticed their altered language or their graver brow In a little while, finding they had ceased to be aerous, but as dull; and recognized only thenceforward, as art, the innocuous boelo, and fluent efflorescence of Bernini But when you become more intimately and impartially acquainted with the history of the Refor and Giotto strove in the north and south to set forth and exalt the Catholic faith, so surely and earnestly did Holbein and Botticelli strive, in the north, to chastise, and, in the south, to revive it In what manner, I will try to-day briefly to show you

185 I na leaders: there were many, rank and file, orked in alliance with Holbein; with Botticelli, two great ones, Lippi and Perugino But both of these had so much pleasure in their own pictorial faculty, that they strove to keep quiet, and out of har themselves someti aith a novice was not likely to be understood as a step in Church refore[AS] Nor have Protestant divines, even to this day, recognized the real ino's 'infidelity'

Botticelli, the pupil of the one, and the coh sorroell as joy; and he is the greatest of the reforh the least known, because he died without victory

I had hoped to be able to lay before you soraphy of hiave a short abstract soera (Letter XXII); but as yet I have only added internal evidence to the popular story, the more important points of which I must review briefly It will not waste your ti you reference to,--the passages on which I must comment

186 ”His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up with care, and caused hiht to children before they choose a calling But although the boy readily acquired whatever he wished to learn, yet was he constantly discontented; neither would he take any pleasure in reading, writing, or accounts, insomuch that the father, disturbed by the eccentric habits of his son, turned hiossip of his, called Botticello, as a goldsmith, and considered a very coht learn the sa, nor accounts”! You will find the sa recorded of Cimabue; but it is more curious when stated of a entleh there were not so ious Tract Society for boys to read, there were a great s in the world for boys to see The Val d'Arno was Pater-noster Row to purpose; their Father's Roith books of His writing on the s, and thinking about the about them,--which I commend to you also, as h he knows all about the celestial hierarchies, he is not strong in his letters, nor in his dialect I asked Mr Tyrwhitt to help h with a bit of his Italian the other day Mr Tyrwhitt could only helpthat it was ”Botticelli for so-and-so” And one of the minor reasons which induced me so boldly to attribute these sibyls to hi is so ill done

The engraver would assuredly have had his lettering all right,--or at least neat Botticelli blunders through it, scratches i: and as I told you there's no repentance in the engraver's trade, leaves all the blunders visible

187 Ion this question lately communicated to me[AT] In the autumn of 1872 I possessed s, sona in his youth, others by Sandro hi these, I was continually struck by the co way in which the titles ritten, while all the rest of the handling was really superb; and still more surprised when, on the sleeves and heures of women, (”Helena rapita da Paris,”) I found what seemed to be meant for inscriptions, intricately eh beautifully drawn, I could not read In copying Botticelli's Zipporah this spring, I found the border of her robe wrought with characters of the sa with me, who already knows the minor secrets of Italian art better than I,[AU] assures e hitherto undeciphered

188 ”There was at that time a close connection and aloldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro, who possessed considerable ingenuity, and was strongly disposed to the arts of design, beca, and resolved to devote hied his purpose at once to his father; and the latter, who knew the force of his inclination, took hily to the Carmelite monk, Fra Filippo, as a most excellent painter of that time, hom he placed hi himself thereupon entirely to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the directions, and imitated the reat love for him, and instructed hiree in art as none would have predicted for him”

I have before pointed out to you the iood of it, however, than any of the other painters so educated,--being enabled by it to use gold for light to color, in a glowing harmony never reached with equal perfection, and rarely attes are partly treated as work in niello; and he naratitude, from this first artisan ht moment, another, even h his youth, as to the other through his childhood And this rinding colors, do you suppose, only; or in laying of lines only; or in anything more than these?

189 I will tell you what Lippi ht any boy whom he loved

First, hu nois so entleness and rest Secondly, to finish his work perfectly, and in such teht say of it--not he himself--'Iste perfecit opus' Do you rele's Nest (- 53), that true huht so that we should ever be able to ad it seereat one,--love of flowers No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi Botticelli beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies Fourthly, due honor for classical tradition Lippi is the only religious painter who dresses John Baptist in the camelskin, as the Greeks dressed Heracles in the lion's--over the head Lastly, and chiefly of all,--Le Pere Hyacinthe taught his pupil certain views about the doctrine of the Church, which the boy thought of reat deal; and Master Sandro presently got hi heresy, that if he had been as hot-headed as he was true-hearted, he would soon have come to bad end by the tar-barrel But he is so sweet and so htened; so clever, that everybody is pleased: and at last, actually the Pope sends for hi entleman does,Christ! The sauciest thing, out and out, done in the history of the Reformation, it seems to me; yet so wisely done, and with such true respect otherwise shown for as sacred in the Church, that the Pope didn't e bells

190 I have anticipated, however, in telling you this, the proper course of his biography, to which I now return

”While still a youth he painted the figure of Fortitude, a those pictures of the Virtues which Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo were executing in the Mercatanzia, or Tribunal of Commerce, in Florence In Santo Spirito, a church of the same city, he painted a picture for the chapel of the Bardi faence, and finished it very successfully, depicting certain olive and palm trees therein with extraordinary care”

It is by a beautiful chance that the first work of his, specified by his Italian biographer, should be the Fortitude[AV] Note also what is said of his tree drawing

”Having, in consequence of this work, obtained much credit and reputation, Sandro was appointed by the Guild of Porta Santa Maria to paint a picture in San Marco, the subject of which is the Coronation of Our Lady, who is surrounded by a choir of angels--the whole extrened, and finished by the artist with infinite care He executed various works in the Medici Palace for the elder Lorenzo, ure of Pallas on a shi+eld wreathed with vine branches, whence fla: this he painted of the size of life A San Sebastiano was also a the most remarkable of the works executed for Lorenzo In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Florence, is a Pieta, with sures, by this master: this is a very beautiful work For different houses in various parts of the city Sandro painted ures of women undraped Of these there are still two examples at Castello, a villa of the Duke Cosi the birth of Venus, who is borne to earth by the Loves and Zephyrs; the second also presenting the figure of Venus croith flowers by the Graces: she is here intended to denote the Spring, and the allegory is expressed by the painter with extraordinary grace”

Our young Reformer enters, it seems, on a very miscellaneous course of study; the Coronation of Our Lady; St Sebastian; Pallas in vine-leaves; and Venus,--without fig-leaves Not wholly Calvinistic, Fra Filippo's teaching see such a boy as he was: but I cannot in this lecture enter farther intoso

191 Vasari, however, has shot far ahead in telling us of this picture of the Spring, which is one of Botticelli's co before he was able to paint Greek nyreater spirits; and, while yet quite a youth, painted, at Castello, the assumption of Our Lady, with ”the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the evangelists, the ins, and the hierarchies!”