Landscapes. Émile Michel

the sacred subjects treated by the Umbrian painters.

      Correggio (Antonio Allegri), Jupiter and Io, c.1531.

      Oil on canvas, 162 × 73.5 cm.

      Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.

      But landscape was usually treated merely as an accessory. It might serve to help or complete the expression, the principal theme of which was the figure. Such was the doctrine of the great masters of the Renaissance, practised by them with the differences which were the result of the diversity of their genius. Landscape is quite absent in the work of Michelangelo. There is scarcely a vestige of sky, a bush or a rock in the superb compositions on the arches or walls of the Sistine Chapel. There man is the sole theme.

      It was impossible, on the other hand, that Leonardo, curious as he was about everything, could be indifferent to the study of nature. He observed it with the mind of a savant and loved it with the soul of an artist. The laws of light and of perspective, the formation of the clouds, the flowing of water, the various plants and trees, all interested him. With the arrival of spring we find him drawing flowers, gathered during his walks, and using these sketches for enriching the foregrounds of his Bacchus, his St. John, and his Holy Family. But these graceful plants were not for his Gioconda. Behind her he painted rocky defiles, winding paths, threatening peaks which rise up on all sides as if to shut out the horizon, all this wild scenery serving as a background for the beauty of that strange creature with her feline mouth and gaze.

      Raphael (1483–1520) went further than Leonardo, giving to the extremely varied subjects that he treated the picturesque framework best suited to them. For him the accompanying landscape was not, as with his master, a scrap of nature taken haphazard without relation to the episodes to which it served as a background. Raphael would never have been satisfied with the backgrounds Perugino gives to his Madonnas. He was always careful to have correct proportions, and he makes them interesting by a choice of details, at the same time clearly showing their meaning. Everything is soft and chaste around the Virgin, in the Louvre known as La Belle Jardinière. Her fair hair and fresh face stand out in relief against the clear morning sky; a bluish horizon bounds the peaceful plain, there is limpid water to animate the scene, and a carpet of verdure under her bare feet; the air is perfumed with spring plants, strawberry blossoms, wild geraniums and columbine. The happy harmony of landscape which suits the general characteristics of the compositions as in Parnassus, The Dispute of the Sacrament, The Deliverance of St. Peter, and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, is amazing.

      Raphael (Raffaello Santi), The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Luke 5: 1–11), c.1515–1516.

      Gouache on paper laid onto canvas, 32 × 39 cm.

      Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

      After Raphael, the Umbrian School, having reached its zenith, was destined to degenerate rapidly. But in that privileged land art was not exhausted. Its creative activity, confined at first to the centre of Italy, advanced gradually towards the North, where, whilst prolonging the era of the great artists, it was destined to produce fresh masterpieces. Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), one of the most original of the precursors and perhaps the one who was destined to exercise the greatest influence over his contemporaries, was born at Isola di Carturo. Attracted equally by nature and by antiquity, he endeavoured with great individuality to unite all that could be learnt from the old masters and from a persistent study of reality. He was, in this respect, the living incarnation of the many and various aspirations of the Renaissance. In this synthesis of the universality of things at which he was aiming, force was to be seen rather than grace, and, side by side with his magnificent divinations and his wonderful inspirations, his powerful and austere style has something indescribably rough and terrible. He had his moments of relaxation, however, and then communed sincerely with nature. Behind his stiff, solemn Madonnas, he loved to weave heavy garlands of leaves, flowers and fruits; or, as in the Parnassus, to depict a rich country with scattered towns and castles between the weird fissures in overhanging rocks.

      This mass of somewhat incoherent detail, and the minute finish which we notice in the works of Mantegna’s maturity, were allied to a sense of the picturesque. And yet, although a comparatively short interval separates him from Correggio (1489–1534), the latter gives a very much freer, larger, and truer interpretation of nature. Mantegna is as hard, harsh, violent, and complex as the Parma master is simple, graceful, and restrained. Correggio shows us kindly nature, blossoming under clement skies. There are undulating outlines delicately softened, a delicious lingering light in place of the crude, hard daylight and the stiff, angular lines of primitive style. Chiaroscuro had been attempted by Leonardo, but with Correggio it became an element of expression, which was destined to increase the resources of painting.

      The episodes taken from fable appealed, more than religious subjects, to the characteristics of his talent. For instance, Io swooning is enwrapped by the cloud; Leda and a gay band of companions are pursued by the swans when sporting in the water. Antiope is one of his masterpieces. The nymph, whose beautiful form Jupiter discovers, is sleeping; the white cloud passing above, and the leaves of the oak tree, stirred by the wind, throw their changing shadows and reflections over her, thus lending an additional charm to the picture. Owing to this harmonious union of humanity and nature, the master gives us such an ensemble of rich colours and forms that one sees the harmony at a glance and cannot fail to be fascinated by it.

      Great as it was, Correggio allotted a portion of his work to nature; however, it was with the masters of the Venetian School that landscape painting was to find its full development. With the exception of portrait painting, which held its own by its direct imitation of nature, and thus for some time maintained a certain superiority, the other branches of art, after their period of splendour, rapidly declined everywhere else in Italy. It was on account of this decadence, that the Carracci endeavoured to bring about a reaction in Bologna by its revival. Far from not appreciating the worth of the great masters who had preceded them, the innovators proclaimed their admiration for them and, without pretending to surpass them in the various points in which they excelled, their ambition was to blend the special qualities of each into a harmonious whole.

      The human figure remained the principal object of their study, but the Carracci understood what additional interest landscape would lend to their compositions. They therefore gave an important place to it in large decorative paintings. Annibale (1560–1609), the younger of the two brothers, who was alone entrusted with the execution of the latter work in Bologna and the Farnese Palace, Rome, was not, at that time, sufficiently skilled in this special branch to be able to treat landscape in a very individual manner. He was working with an abstract ideal, and he put the most incongruous details into this work, with deplorable facility. Lacking fresh ideas, he inevitably fell back upon the same forms and colour schemes. His pictures suggest a mass of confused memories; so much so, that upon coming across one of these pictures for the first time we are apt to think we have seen it before. In the Louvre, however, there are two large paintings, Hunting and Fishing, which are worthy of special mention. In the latter picture the artist, impressed no doubt by a similar sight which he had witnessed, has grouped the various figures very cleverly. A deep sense of nature is lacking in these works, but they are very decorative on account of the breadth, the sureness, and the ease of their execution.

      Venice must be considered as the true cradle of landscape. This privilege seemed to be reserved for this city by its very topography. The other Italian cities in the Middle Ages, had only a narrow horizon before them. From Venice, on the contrary, the view extended on all sides over the sea, and, in the distance, over vast plains of land dominated by the Alpine peaks. The city itself is a joy to the eye.

      Nevertheless, art was slow in responding to the call of nature.

      Absorbed for a long time by various difficulties which it was necessary to overcome in order to secure its existence in so exceptional a location, Venice had held back aloof from the great movement of artistic revival which had begun in the centre of Italy. But when, with the prosperity which was the result of its daring enterprises, Venice realised that art was destined to be the supreme luxury of her