Modern Philology VOL. IV October, 1906 No. 2 THE GROWTH OF INTEREST IN THE EARLY FROM TISCHBEIN TO RUSKIN Interest has lately become keen in the rise and spread of the study of "Christian art." Through the efforts of various men in all countries-among the English-speaking nations primarily through Ruskin-the world has long been made familiar with the value of the pictorial art of the early Renaissance. It is only within comparatively recent times, however, that the historian has become aware that our present attitude toward the earlier masters was a necessary corollary of the great emotional upheaval which took its inception a century and a half ago. Several treatises-to which I shall have occasion to refer in the course of this investigation-have lately appeared, more or less directly bearing on the subject here under discussion, and it is the purpose of the present writing further to contribute to a better understanding of one of the most interesting movements in criticism, and especially to point to the importance of German influence upon it. To appreciate the originality implied in our modern attitude toward the early painters of Italy, it will be necessary briefly to familiarize ourselves with the canons prominent in the eighteenth century. Let us remember that the age of Louis XIV, which made current the formulæ of art and of life in vogue during a large part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was essentially aristocratic and intellectual. It insisted on dignity, refinement, and control, and was impatient of any tendency to break through the tenets of established creed. Emotion and individuality were held in check, if not suppressed; "regularity" and clearness were insisted upon. Hence antiquity influenced that age. Not, however, in the sense in which it did the Renaissance movement in Italy-as a thing of exuberance and power, broadening the horizon and leading men back to nature. It was merely an influence in the direction of dignity, exquisiteness, and technical perfection; until refinement became weakness, dignity coldness, control stiffness. The uncritical admiration for antiquity prevalent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to an infinitely narrow interpretation of the past. Our modern belief-first pronounced by Herder, and later more clearly defined by nineteenth century critics like Taine-according to which every temperament has a right to produce its own expression, was totally unknown. Whatever did not fit the established formula was rejected. The ideal painter to those generations was Raphael. His work exhibited grace, technical skill, infinite refinement, and— his later productions at least—a knowledge of the ancients. seemed satisfactory in every respect. He We can even today concur in this admiration, although partly for different reasons; but what seems much less intelligible to us is the fact that the Bolognese school-the Carracci, Albano, Guido Reni, Guercino, etc.-were believed to have rivaled, even distanced, the author of the "Transfiguration." The Bolognese, such was the feeling, had freed art from mannerism, and had firmly established le bon goût. In the Carracci boldness and strength seemed coupled with dazzling technical ability; Guido appeared "divinely" graceful; and even Guercino, so disagreeable to us today on account of his violent contrasts of light and shade and his unnatural flesh-tints, was greatly beloved. Many writers agreed that the masters of Bologna represented the highest attainment of the human genius in the realm of pictorial art. Even Pietro da Cortona, to our taste an empty rhetorician, was for a time regarded as a painter of the first rank.1 Michel Angelo, on the other hand, the master-giant of the Renaissance, very characteristically for the time, seemed powerful but graceless, and hence essentially inartistic. Only after the middle of the century, after the yearning for power in literature had inspired Houdar de la Motte and Lessing with words of bitterness or ridicule for the French tragedy, Michel Angelo and Shakespeare together rose on the world. In 1772 Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a "discourse" delivered before the Royal Academy in London, declared that "the effect of the capital works of Michel Angelo perfectly corresponds to what Bourchardon said he felt from reading Homer; his whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which surrounded him, diminished to atoms." The decline of Michel Angelo's reputation, he feels, was due to the decline of art." One might imagine that the admiration for strength which increased as the eighteenth century waned would soon have freed men from the polished Bolognese. Far from it; they exerted a sort of spell far into the nineteenth century. Then at last depth and sincerity of feeling, and naïveté, became the watch-words of art-criticism, and Guido and his associates were banished. transit gloria mundi.3 Sic 1 Coulanges (a cousin of Madame de Sévigné) who was in Italy in 1657 and 1658, maintains (cf. Mémoires de M. de Coulanges, publiés par M. de Monmerqué [Paris, 1820], p. 18): the Italians think Pietro "emporte la palme sur tous les autres," and popes, cardinals, and princes regard his paintings "avec un estime sans pareille." Lione Pascoli, in his Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni (Rome, 1730), says of Pietro (Vol. I, p. 3): "Ed in vero chi in maggior copia più di lui, e con maggior facilità, e franchezza ha dipinto cose grandi Aveva il fuoco ne' colori, la veemenza nelle mani, l' impeto nel pennello.". Even Cochin-of whom more later-in his Lettres à un jeune artiste peintre, and in other works shows a foible for him. Pietro's reputation waned, however, long before that of the Bolognese. Heinrich Meyer, in his Entwurf einer Kunstgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts (1805), praises the latter, but attacks Pietro. 2 Cf. The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with a Memoir by Beechy, Vol. I (London, 1899), pp. 371f. It is interesting, in this connection, to note Diderot's attitude toward Michel Angelo. In his "Pensées detachées sur la peinture, la sculpture, l'architecture et la poésie," Œuvres complètes de Diderot, ed. Assézat, Vol. XII (Paris, 1876), p. 118, he says: "Qui est-ce qui a vu Dieu? c'est Raphaël, c'est le Guide. Qui est-ce qui a vu Moise? c'est Michel-Ange." And later (p. 132): "Il faut copier d'après Michel-Ange, et corriger son dessin d'après Raphael." 3 The best representative of this hybrid attitude is Diderot. In his "Pensées detachées" (loc. cit., p. 118) he says: "La colère du Saint Michel du Guide est aussi noble, aussi belle que la douleur du Laocoon." And in another place: "Il n'y a, à proprement parler, que Throughout the eighteenth century, however, besides Raphael and the Bolognese, a few other masters of the High Renaissance throned in the realm of art. Titian and Correggio were felt to be the rivals of the greatest. Correggio charmed by his infinite grace; Titian by his marvelous coloring. Paolo Veronese, too, delighted because of the elegance of his figures, and Giulio by his ability as a technician. Lionardo, Tintoretto, Andrea del Sarto found favor, although in a lesser degree. Even Perugino and Mantegna, the former as the teacher of the "divine" Raphael, the latter as the instructor of Correggio, were deemed worthy of study. Here and there a good-natured critic or traveler has a kind word for Giorgione or for Fra Bartolomeo, or even for Bellini. Giotto is often mentioned as the founder of modern pictorial art, and occasionally someone has heard that Masaccio had something to do with the improvement of the technique of painting. But nobody is so barbarous as to waste time on Fra Angelico, Botticelli, the Lippis, Luca Signorelli, Ghirlandajo, Carpaccionot to speak of less prominent men like Gentile da Fabriano, Cima, etc. To be sure, the names of these men occasionally occur, and the ignorant, who praise everything, praise even them. But those who know the bon goût are aware that almost all art which antedates Raphael is "Gothic."1 trois grands peintres originaux, Raphaël, le Dominiquin et le Poussin. Entre les autres, qui forment pour ainsi dire leur école, il y en a qui se sont distingués par quelque qualités particulières" (Œuvres, Vol. X, p. 374). 1 This word has an interesting history. In the eighteenth century it was applied to the painting, sculpture and architecture which developed in various parts of Europe after the decay of the Roman Empire and before about 1500. The Goths, meaning the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, stood to the seventeenth and a large part of the eighteenth century for everything that is brutal and savage. Hence "Gothic" was tantamount to "crude, barbarous." Vasari (Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori. Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi [Firenze, 1878-81], Vol. I, pp. 138 ff.) says: "Ecci un' altra specie di lavori che si chiamano tedeschi Questa maniera fu trovata dai Goti, che ... fecero dopo coloro che rimasero le fabbriche di questa maniera e riempierono tutta Italia di questa maledizione di fabbriche." For generation after generation nobody dared to differ with the famous biographer. As late as 1778 J. G. Sulzer explains in his Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste" (2d ed. Vol. II, [Leipzig, 1792], pp. 433 ff.): "Man bedienet sich dieses Beyworts [i. e., "gothisch"] in den schönen Künsten vielfältig, um dadurch einen barbarischen Geschmak anzudeuten; wiewohl der Sinn des Ausdruks selten genau bestimmt wird. Fürnehmlich scheinet er eine Unschiklichkeit, den Mangel der Schönheit und guter Verhältnisse, in sichtbaren Formen anzuzeigen, und ist daher entstanden, dass die Gothen, die sich in Italien niedergelassen, die Werke der alten Baukunst auf eine ungeschikte Art nachgeahmt haben. Dieses würde jedem noch halb barbarischen Volke begegnen, das schnell zu Macht und Reichthum gelanget, eh' es Zeit gehabt hat, an die Cultur des Geschmaks zu denken. Also ist der gothische Geschmak Architecture was gaged by the same standard as painting. Antiquity had established the norm in this department of artistic activity, as it had in all others. Hence only those architects who were influenced by the "regular" forms were respected. The Byzantine, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Moorish styles were all branded "Gothic." The sovereign master of the regular style was, however, Palladio, and his work was, therefore, perfect.' den Gothen nicht eigen, sondern allen Völkern gemein, die sich mit Werken der zeichnenden Künste abgeben, ehe der Geschmak eine hinlängliche Bildung bekommen hat Darum nennt man nicht nur die von den Gothen aufgeführten plumpen, sondern auch die abentheuerlichen und mit tausend unnützen Zierrathen überladenen Gebäude, wozu vermuthlich die in Europa sich niedergelassenen Saracenen die ersten Muster gegeben haben, gothisch. Man findet auch Gebäude, wo diese beyde Arten des schlechten Geschmaks vereiniget sind. In der Mahlerey nennt man die Art zu zeichnen gothisch, die in Figuren herrschte, ehe die Kunst durch das Studium der Natur und des Antiken am Ende des XV. Jahrhunderts wieder hergestellt worden Es scheinet also überhaupt, dass der gothische Geschmak aus Mangel des Nachdenkens über das, was man zu machen hat, entstehe." For details on the history of the word, cf. G. Lüdtke: "Gothisch im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert," Zeitschrift für Deutsche Wortforschung, Vol. IV, (1904), pp. 133 ff. In addition to the passages given by Lüdtke, a few more which have come under my observation may here find a place as further illustration of the ignorance in regard to the history of art on the part of the eighteenth-century public. .. The most amusing proof of confusion is perhaps the following utterance by a Swedish writer, C. A. Ehrensvärd. He says, in his Resa til Italien, 1780, 1781, 1782: Skrifven 1782 i Stralsund; ny uplaga (Stockholm, 1819), p. 29: "Uti arabesquerne i Pompeji och Herculanum år Gothiska architecturen målad; man ser derigenom huru litet man har fog at kalla den Göthisk." ("In the arabesques in Pompeii and Herculaneum are represented specimens of Gothic architecture; we perceive from this fact how little justification there is for calling them Gothic.") Gray, the poet, cultured man though he was, calls the Doge's palace at Venice "in the Arabesque manner," Works, ed. Ed. Gosse, Vol. II. (New York, 1890), p. 255. Fr. von Stolberg, as late as 1791, claims: "aus Spanien kam die gothische Architektonik über Frankreich nach Deutschland (Gesammelte Werke der Brüder Christian und Friedrich Grafen zu Stolberg, Vol. VII [Hamburg, 1827], p. 72). Students of Diderot remember that the most withering epithet of contempt he could hurl in his rage at his cowardly printer who had emasculated some of D.'s most seditious articles in the Encyclopedia was "Ostro-Goth." Ignorance concerning the nature of Gothic is further attested by Horace Mann, the correspondent of Sir Horace Walpole, who innocently believed W.'s garden at Strawberry Hill to be Gothic (cf. Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, Vol. II [London, 1891], p. 327). Here the word is used without opprobrium. Walpole himself as early as 1753 implies admiration in using the word. He writes to Bentley (Letters, Vol. II, p. 351) of the "charming venerable Gothic scene" presented by the buildings at Oxford during a moonlight night. A change of attitude toward the Middle Ages naturally spread the interpretation of the word as used by Walpole. By way of contrast, let us remember that Ruskin, in the Stones of Venice ("Torcello," §5; omitted in the Brantwood edition), uses "Gothic energy and love of life" as a term of highest approbation. 1 Palladio's influence was particularly powerful in England. Inigo Jones (1573-1652), the creator of modern English architecture, was twice in Italy, where he enthusiastically studied the works of Palladio. He later introduced the Palladian style into England, to the almost total exclusion of national traditions. He was encouraged by the nobility, although the middle classes compelled him at times to build more nearly in the spirit of Gothic architecture. One of Jones's most remarkable classical buildings is the villa in Chiswick, Middlesex, an imitation of the Villa Rotonda by Palladio. Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), the architect of St. Paul's, rebuilt London, after the great fire of 1666, largely in the spirit of Palladio. In the eighteenth century James Gibbs (1682-1754) and |