Landscapes. Émile Michel

trees, and winding creeks, where, as they die away, the idle waves leave a silvery band of foam. There are bluebells, anemones, and wild irises growing among the grass, and, in the foreground, we see the vine clinging lovingly to the trunks of the slender trees. Wherever we look everything is gay and harmonious. The gilding of the chariot and the golden colouring of the animals bring out the blues of the sky, mountains, and sea. A note of pale pink and of rich purple is given by the drapery floating in the breeze. The execution, always so lifelike and sure, lends an added charm of spontaneity to the beauty of this masterpiece.

      Veronese (Paolo Veronese), The Wedding Feast at Cana (Noces de Cana) (detail of Titian as cello player), c.1562–1563.

      Oil on canvas, 677 × 994 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      In spite of Titian’s ever-increasing fame, he always reserved his best time for work. Charles V conferred a title upon him, and, as time passed, he was in great favour with Philip II, Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, the Duke of Mantua, and even Pope Paul III. All tried to keep him at their Court, but he preferred his independence, his home and his work, to all such grandeur. Like Giorgione and many other great painters, he delighted in music. It was, perhaps, only by chance that Paolo Veronese represented him playing a violoncello in the foreground of the Marriage at Cana.

      The portraits painted by Titian would form a complete gallery of the celebrities of his times. In most of them a considerable place is given to nature. He has painted pictures in all styles and with equal ability, but in them all he assigns the chief place to nature. The old memoires mention his landscapes, which cannot be discovered anywhere, and Titian himself, in a letter to Philip II in 1552, informs the King that he has sent him one of these landscapes. In any case, on account of his great love of nature and his skilful interpretation of it, Titian deserves to be considered as the creator, or, as several historians of art have styled him, the Homer of landscape painting. In his immense number of pictures he has shown the infinite variety of nature. He has depicted the ever-changing aspects of every season, of every hour of the day, of all effects of light and shade, and of the various phenomena of atmosphere.

      Titian’s glory has only increased with time. His influence has been felt through the ages and by a variety of artists. Rubens, not content with admiring him and collecting his works, was never tired of copying him. The Carracci, Poussin, Watteau, and Gainsborough, were all greatly influenced by him. No other artist of the Venetian school has had either his universality or his ability. Important as he considered it, landscape painting was only one phase of his genius. With one of his disciples, Domenico Campagnola, whose drawings, though very inferior, have sometimes been mistaken for Titan’s, landscape became a special branch.

      Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), View of the Grand Canal.

      Oil on canvas.

      The Barnes Foundation, Merion (Pennsylvania).

      Some of the pupils and imitators of Titian gave a large place to landscape in their pictures.

      Two other masters deserve special mention, as, after Titian, they kept up the fame of the Venetian school. Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto (c.1518–1594), a pupil of Titian’s, was one of these, and Paolo Caliari (1528–1588), who took the name of Veronese from his birthplace, was the other.

      Tintoretto’s originality is to be seen in that wonderful masterpiece entitled the Miracle of St. Mark. The scenery lends additional charm to the prodigious wealth of the colouring. A bolder and more harmonious unison can scarcely be imagined than that of this sky of intense and luminous blue, with the architecture lit up by the sunshine and serving as a background for the dazzling apparition of the saint.

      Tintoretto’s execution is usually just as rough and spirited as the whole treatment of Veronese is quiet and sober, with light colour and delicate gradation of tones. Following the traditions of Carpaccio, but with a better knowledge of art, Veronese transposed religious subjects according to his Venetian taste. He paid so little regard to orthodoxy that the Inquisition, usually somewhat lax in Venice, called him to account.

      His smaller pictures are perhaps superior to his large compositions. In the former he has given some of the most characteristic aspects of Venice in the most charmingly poetic manner. Not only did the city itself supply him with elements for the most decorative subjects imaginable, but he also found a way of evoking memories of Venice and of its brilliant past. Leaning over a balustrade, or against a marble pillar, we see, in his pictures, beautiful Venetians. Quite apart from the other schools of Italy, the Venetian school kept its distinct existence and its own peculiar characteristics to the very end.

      Its perfection was reached with Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian, and its traditions were continued by such masters as Tintoretto and Veronese. The decorative sense, derived from nature itself, was a tradition in this school, and was kept up, until the fall of the Republic, by the marvellous compositions of Tiepolo (1696–1770). At the same time, and as though to complete the cycle of its transformations, the Venetian school, before disappearing, produced two landscapists, Canal and Guardi, almost the only ones to whom Italy has given birth. Antonio Canal (1697–1768) did not follow the example of his predecessors in their free interpretation of nature. In his pictures he gives us aspects which are either quite true to nature, or where he has modified the arrangement, the elements themselves have been taken from reality. After her inspired poets and singers, Venice found in him her portraitist. In his numerous pictures, we see Venice as it was. The works of this able artist are easily recognised by their well-drawn architecture, their full, bold colouring, the faultlessness of the handling and the sureness of the technique.

      Francesco Guardi (1712–1793) was a pupil of Antonio Canal’s. He was born in Venice and, like Canal, drew his best inspirations from his native city. In his pictures his brush is lighter and more alert than that of his master. His colouring is less rich, but his light is cleverly indicated by touches of paint from a full brush. But his work has not the absolute correctness of Canal’s. In several of his pictures errors of perspective can be found and somewhat doubtful proportions with regard to the buildings. Architecture, however, does not always occupy the primary position in his compositions. He delights in religious or official ceremonies, as such subjects gave him the opportunity of painting a seething crowd of people of all kinds; courtesans and idlers, masked people and noble lords, dignitaries of the Church, sailors, boatmen, etc.; a whole world of people dressed in festive attire, whose lives appear to be a perpetual festival. It was in the midst of these constant spectacles and amusements that Venice was to lose her independence and her art. Unfortunately, together with its own peculiar life, Venice has lost its school, that school which was its greatest glory, and which was so closely connected with all the vicissitudes of its strange existence.

      Chapter 2 Landscape in the Flemish and German Schools

      Francesco Guardi, Departure of Bucentaure towards the Lido of Venice on Ascension Day, c.1775–1780.

      Oil on canvas, 66 × 101 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Suicide of Saul (detail), 1562.

      Oil on oak, 33.5 × 55 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.

      Jan van Eyck, The Adoration of the Mystical Lamb or The Ghent Altarpiece, 1432.

      Oil on panel, 350 × 461 cm (opened); 350 × 223 cm (closed).

      Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent.

      Jan van Eyck, The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, c.1435.

      Oil on panel, 66 × 62 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      The Flemish School

      The