A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools. National Gallery (Great Britain)

antico," which was brought from the quarry at Simittu, in the territory of Tunis. It had long been known that Rome was full of the beautiful "giallo antico," sometimes yellow, sometimes rosy in colour, but always of exquisite texture and even to work. It had come from the province of Africa; and the quarry was rediscovered by a Belgian engineer working on the railway then being made from Tunis to the Algerian frontier. He observed at Simittu a half-consumed mountain with gaps clearly marked, from which the last monoliths had been cut, and the work of the Romans was presently resumed by a Belgian Company. No more beautiful specimen of the "giallo antico" similar to that used in Augustan Rome could be desired than slabs in the entrance to the National Gallery. The cornice above the "giallo antico" walls is of "pavonazzetto" from the Apennines, near Pisa, and the same marble forms the base of the red columns. These splendid columns come from quarries near Chenouah, just west of Algiers, which were first opened by the French some years ago. Red Etruscan is the unmeaning trade name of this jasper-like stone, which is also used for door frames in many of the new rooms with very sumptuous effect.

      THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

      "This is the way people look when they feel this or that – when they have this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then – whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly —that the Florentine School lived to discern and show; that they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth – the open expression of the living human soul" (Ruskin: Two Paths, § 21).

      Each face obedient to its passion's law,

      Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue.

Robert Browning: Pictor Ignotus.

      "Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts; – the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last." The reason for this faithfulness in the record of art is twofold. The art of any nation can only be great "by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race;" and secondly, "art is always instinctive, and the honesty or pretence of it therefore open to the day" (St. Mark's Rest, Preface). It has been seen from the remarks already made how Florentine art in its infancy was thus in a certain sense a record of the times out of which it sprang. In the later pictures, we may trace some of the developments which characterised the inner history of Florence in succeeding stages. The first thing that will strike any one who takes a general look at the early Florentine pictures and then at the later, is the fact that easel pictures have now superseded fragments of fresco and altar-pieces. Here at once we see reflected two features of the time of the Renaissance. Pictures were no longer wanted merely for church decoration and Scripture teaching; there was a growing taste for beautiful things as household possessions. And then also the influence of the church itself was declining; the exclusive place hitherto occupied by religion as a motive for art was being superseded by the revival of classical learning. Benozzo Gozzoli paints the Rape of Helen, Botticelli paints Mars and Venus, Piero di Cosimo paints the Death of Procris, and Pollajuolo the story of Apollo and Daphne. The Renaissance was, however, "a new birth" in another way than this; it opened men's eyes not only to the learning of the ancient world, but to the beauties of the world in which they themselves lived. In previous times the burden of serious and thoughtful minds had been, "The world is very evil, the times are waxing late;" the burden of the new song is, "The world is very beautiful." Thus we see the painters no longer confined to a fixed cycle of subjects represented with the traditional surroundings, but ranging at will over everything that they found beautiful or interesting around them. And above all they took to representing the noblest embodiment of life – the human form. Some attempts at portraiture may be perceived in the saints of the earliest pictures; but here we find professed portraits on every wall. This indeed was one of the chief glories of the Florentine School – "the open expression of the living human soul." This widening and secularising of art did not pass in Florence, as we know, without a protest; and here, too, history is painted on the walls. Some of the protest was silent, as Angelico's, who painted on through a later generation in the old spirit; some of it was vocal, in the fiery eloquence of Savonarola, whose influence may be seen in Botticelli's work (1034).

      But the development went on, all protests notwithstanding; for as the life of every nation runs its appointed course, so does its art; and the second point of interest in studying a school of painting is to watch its successive periods of birth, growth, maturity, and decay. In no school is this development so completely marked as in the Florentine, which for this reason, as well as for its priority in time, and therefore influence on succeeding schools, takes precedence of all others. The first period – covering roughly the fourteenth century, called the Giottesque, from its principal master – is that in which the thing told is of more importance than the manner of telling it, and in which the religious sentiment dominated the plastic faculty. In the second period, covering roughly the fifteenth century, and called by the Italians the period of the quattro-centisti,16 the artist, beginning as we have seen to look freely at the world around him, begins also to study deeply with a view to represent nature more exactly. One may see the new passion for the scientific study of the art in Paolo Uccello (583), who devoted himself to perspective; and in Pollajuolo (292), who first studied anatomy from the dead body. It is customary to group the Florentine artists of this scientific and realistic period under three heads, according to the main tendencies which they severally exhibit. The first group aimed especially at "action, movement, and the expression of intense passions." The artist who stands at the head of this group, Masaccio, is, unhappily, not represented in the National Gallery, but the descent from him is represented by Fra Filippo Lippi, Pesellino, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi. The second group aimed rather at "realistic probability, and correctness in hitting off the characteristics of individual things," and is represented by Cosimo Rosselli, Piero di Cosimo, Ghirlandajo, Andrea del Sarto, Francia Bigio. Thirdly, some of the Florentine School were directly influenced by the work of contemporary sculptors. Chief amongst this group are Pollajuolo, Verocchio, himself a sculptor, and Lorenzo di Credi. We come now to the third stage in the Florentine, as in every other vital school of painting. This period witnesses the perfection of the technical processes of the art, and the attempt of the painter to "raise forms, imitated by the artists of the preceding period from nature, to ideal beauty, and to give to the representations of the sentiments and affections the utmost grace and energy." The great Florentine masters of this culminating period are Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The former is especially typical of this stage of development. "When a nation's culture has reached its culminating point, we see everywhere," says Morelli,17 "in daily life as well as in literature and art, that grace18 comes to be valued more than character. So it was in Italy during the closing decades of the fifteenth century and the opening ones of the sixteenth. To no artist was it given to express this feeling so fully as to the great Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most richly gifted man that mother Nature ever made. He was the first who tried to express the smile of inward happiness, the sweetness of the soul." But this culminating period of art already contained within it the germs of decay. The very perfection of the technical processes of painting caused in all, except painters of the highest mental gifts, a certain deadness and coldness, such as Browning makes Andrea del Sarto (1487-1531) be conscious of in his own works; the "faultless painter" as compared with others less technically perfect but more full of soul (see under 690). Moreover the very fascination of the great men, the pleasure in imitating their technical skill, led to decay. Grace soon passed into insipidity, and the dramatic energy of Michael Angelo into exaggerated violence. One mannerism led to another until the school of the "Eclectics" sought to unite the mannerisms of all, and Italian art, having run its course, became extinct.19

      The growth and decay of painting described above is connected by Ruskin with a corresponding growth and decay in religion. He divides the course of mediæval art into two stages: the first stage (covering the first two periods above) "is that of the formation of conscience by the discovery