Now Rio introduces a long chapter on Savonarola. As lovers "de l'art et de la poésie chrétienne" we must remember, in order to understand the famous monk, that he found everything in Florence-art, manners, customs polluted with paganism.' He saw that "la décadence des beaux-arts tenait principalement à la décadence du culte parmi les chrétiens."" His influence became tremendous, and the enthusiasm for his doctrines went so far that many voluptuous works of art, among them several antique statues, were destroyed. "Fra Bartolomeo apporta scrupuleusement tous les desseins qu'il avait faits comme études du nu, et son exemple fut suivi par Lorenzo di Credi et par plusieurs autres peintres qui avaient compris le besoin d'une prompte régénération pour leur art."

The following chapter deals with the men who, according to Rio, in their art carried out Savonarola's teaching, especially Lorenzo di Credi, Fra Bartolomeo, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. He calls this "l'école religieuse pure." Fra Bartolomeo is a great favorite of Rio, who delights in his "répugnance pour toute espèce de sujets profanes." Ridolfo left the path of his father and became "le dernier représentant de l'école mystique.""

Many interesting works of the sixteenth century belong to "naturalisme." Though we find in them "conceptions beaucoup moins sublimes" than are those of the Umbrian school, they nevertheless stand in the front rank in the history of painting "quand on est venu à la période de décroissance." Rio cannot by any means place as high an estimate as does Cochin in his Voyage d'Italie on the artists who imitate nature on the side of color. Yet "nous leur devons une sorte de reconnaissance pour avoir donné à cet élément subalterne tout le dévelopement dont il était susceptible." To the glory of the artists of Florence be it said that even in the period of decadence "ils ne se sont pas laissés séduire par la vogue scandaleuse"-in matters of coloring "qu' obtenaient les productions cyniques du Titien et de Jules Romain."

1 P. 305.

2 P. 328.

999

3 P. 352.

6 P. 395.

9 P. 397.

Andrea del Sarto had much talent, but lacked the highest inspiration. His disgraceful passion for Lucrezia del Fede made him put her into several of his paintings as the Virgin. Some of his Madonnas, like the one in the Annunziata in Florence, the Madonna del Sacco, and the Madonna of St. Francis in the Tribuna, are admirable; others belong to a "type vulgaire.""

Mantegna absorbed much from antiquity with wonderful powers of assimilation. Such skill makes one "regretter d'autant plus la perte d'un temps si précieux qu'il aurait pu consacrer exclusivement à la composition d'œuvres plus vitales."" Latermuch to his advantage-he was somewhat influenced by Giovanni Bellini. The Madonna in S. Zeno in Verona, however, calls out Rio's enthusiastic approval. Mantegna had no great disciples— not even his two sons accomplished anything important. "Ce triste résultat prouve plus invinciblement qu'aucune théorie, la funeste influence exercée par l'élément païen sur les arts d'imagination, toutes les fois qu'il n'a pas été rigoureusement subordinné à l'élément religieux, le seul qui contienne le germe de traditions véritablement vivaces." Mantua, "cette pauvre ville," was haunted by a sort of fatality. No sooner did the "école défectueuse" of Mantegna expire there than she hailed with delight "le cynique Jules Romain" whose brush, void of poetry, “était toujours incomparable quand il s'agissait de distiller le poison."

Venice did not go to Mantua nor to Padua where at one time Lippi found favor-for inspiration. She preferred to communicate with the "école pure et mystique" of Umbria. The influence of Umbrian ideals continued in Venice until came "la grande invasion du naturalisme et du paganisme" at the end of the fifteenth century. Gentile da Fabriano established the connection between Venice and Umbria. He was in a sense the founder of the school of the Bellinis. German and Dutch art also

influenced painting in Venice.*

Of the two Bellinis, Gentile had a leaning toward the principles of the school of Mantegna. Giovanni never did. He painted much better later in life than he had done earlier in his career.

But his type of Christ was always the same.

He never spoiled his works by making them merely graceful. The Virgin on his canvasses is always "toute entière au pressentiment de ses souffrances." This type of Madonna is not as beautiful as that of the Umbrian school, "mais il est plus prophétique." After Antonello da Messina had taught him the art of painting in oil, he began to produce his greatest chefs-d'œuvre. Among these the Madonna in the Frari church in Venice is a masterpiece comparable to the greatest of the Umbrian school. The artist seems to have had an "avant-goût de la béatitude céleste" when he painted it. The Madonna in S. Zaccaria in Venice is the "chef-d'œuvre de l'école vénitienne pour tout ce qui tient à la poésie et à la profondeur des caractères." We find in it "grace naïve" and "simplicité touchante"-the "attribus exclusifs des productions de cette époque, qui fut comme l'age d'or de la peinture chrétienne."

Among the other masters of the older period of Venetian art, Carpaccio is to him the most delightful. The Ursula series he calls "ce monument colossal de l'art chrétien."

Among Giovanni Bellini's pupils occurred a schism. Some "s'engagèrent dans les voies du perfectionnement extérieur, à la suite du Giorgion, réformateur non moins impétueux ni moins hardi que son contemporain Luther." Others continued the principles of mystic art. They were "amplement dédomagés par le suffrage populaire de la pitié qu'ils inspiraient aux novateurs" (!). Among those faithful to these sacred tenets, Vicenzo Catena was "l'un des plus grands peintres de l'école venitienne."

Giovanni Bellini influenced artists in different parts of the Veneto, especially in Bergamo; these pure traditions in the little town explain the appearance of Palma Vecchio and Lorenzo Lotto.'

On the remaining pages of his book Rio speaks of the relation of painting to music, has praise for Paolo Veronese's "magnifique tableau des noces de Cana" in the Louvre, shows how much longer the Venetian school retained religious feeling in painting

1 P. 474.

2 P. 478.

3 P. 481.

4 P. 498.

5 P. 504.

6 P. 506. Catena is now forgotten. Never does the danger of the Schlegel-Rio method become more apparent than by such praise bestowed on mediocrity.

than did other schools; furthermore, how intense the Christian spirit was in Venetian life, and how corruption ultimately overwhelmed Venice in the eighteenth century.'

Was ever interpretation more subjective, capricious, one-sided, placed upon the works of the great artists of Italy? Not only does Rio neglect or despise nearly everything which to Cochin and Mengs seemed vital, but he goes so far in his reaction against the rationalism of the eighteenth century that he might fairly, by way of motto, have placed on the fly-leaf of his book the words of Friedrich Schlegel, quoted above: "Ich habe vorzüglich Sinn für den alten Styl in der christlichen Mahlerei, nur diese verstehe und begreife ich, und nur über diese kann ich reden." For with Rio, as with Schlegel, the supreme test of a work of art is: "Does it breathe the religious spirit?" not at all: "Is it well painted?” or, "Does it reflect a great artistic individuality?" That illstarred confusion between art and religion, implied as early as 1790 in the principles of Tischbein's associates, which appeared for the first time in a printed work in Wackenroder's Herzensergiessungen, which gives to Fr. Schlegel's essays their glamor of originality, and which guided the brush of the artists grouped about Overbeck-informs every line of the Poésie chrétienne. What Wackenroder had preached with subdued sweetness here sounds in clarion notes. The Poésie chrétienne may be called the great manifesto of the Wackenroder-Schlegel school of criticism."?

1 When the second volume appeared in 1855, Lindsay and Ruskin had begun to publish. It therefore does not interest us here, although it represents the same point of view as the first.

2 That Rio was directly influenced by the writings of Fr. Schlegel is proved by a passage in the Poésie (p. 450) in which he quotes from the essay in the Europa, entitled "Gemaldebeschreibungen aus Paris und den Niederlanden," and calls Schlegel "l'homme qui a le plus vivement senti l'art chrétien dans les temps modernes et qui portait dans ses jugements esthétiques toute la candeur d'une belle ame jointe aux lumières d'un beau génie." The title of Rio's work, apparently so far-fetched, seems inspired by a passage in Schlegel's Europa (Vol. II, erstes Stück, pp. 113 ff.). Schlegel here discusses the two elements which are essential to good painting: technique and inspiration, "Geist und Buchstabe, Erfindung und Ausführung." Of the latter he says: "Auch ist die Erfindung so zu verstehen, dass, was man Anordnung und Composition nennt, mit darunter verstanden ist; mit einem Worte, die Poesie in dem Gemahlde. . . . Geist und Buchstabe also, das Mechanische und die Poesie, das sind Bestandtheile der Mahlerei . . . . Einer möglichen Misdeutung müssen wir noch vorbeugen, was die Forderung der Poesie betrifft. Der Mahler soll ein Dichter seyn, das ist keine Frage; aber nicht eben ein Dichter in Worten, sondern in Farben. Mag er doch seine Poesie überall anders herhaben, als aus der Poesie selbst, wenn es nur Poesie ist. Das Beispiel der alten Mahler wird uns auch hier am besten orientiren. Aber wir

....

It is interesting to note the difference between Rio and Rumohr, the scholar to whom he avowedly owed so much. No one could be more deeply interested in the naïve religious painters of Italy than the great German critic. But Rumohr, checked by a thoroughly artistic temperament, never forgets that pictorially to interpret life in its multitudinous forms is as great a contribution to the spiritual development of the race as exclusively to study the manifestations of the religious spirit; is, in fact, in a broad sense, a form of worship. More than that, he never overlooks the tremendous importance of technique, and he is fully aware that to be a religious painter need by no means necessarily imply being a great artist.

But let us not be unjust. Rio, like Schlegel, is certainly not conspicuous for soundness. Yet, as Schlegel, by dint of those very exaggerations which offend us, freed Germany from Mengs, so Rio, by his profound love for the poetry of religion, freed France from the worldly and unsatisfactory critical dogma of Cochin. The Frenchman did even more than the German toward establishing in the eyes of the world the importance of those early masters who had so long been contemned, and who are so dear to us now. He did more, I say; for his book was destined to make a deep impression in various parts of Europe.

In France, to be sure, it was at first entirely unsuccessful. The publisher sold only twelve copies during the first five months after its appearance, and as late as 1838 Délacluse, the oracle in matters of art on the Journal des Débats, asked Rio's friend Montalembert whether Rio actually was in earnest with his peculiar views on painting. He even wrote articles which were meant to warn young artists against those ideas. A sort of despair fell

meinen darunter nur die poetische Ansicht der Dinge, und diese hatten die Alten näher aus der Quelle. Die Poesie der alten Mahler war theils die Religion, wie beim Perugino, Fra Bartholomeo und vielen andern Alten; theils Philosophie, wie beim tiefsinnigen Leonardo, oder aber beides, wie in dem unergründlichen Dürer." He continues to explain that the poetry of the Middle Ages was religion and mystic philosophy. Therefore in our scientific age, in which religion has virtually passed out of life, the painter's only recourse is "die universellste Kunst aller Künste. . . . die Poesie, wo er, wenn er sie gründlich studirt, beides vereinigt finden wird, sowohl die Religion als die Philosophie der alten Zeit. Dass nun eine solche poetische Absicht in den Gemählden der alten, sowohl italianischen als deutschen Schule durchaus vorhanden, ja der eigentliche Zweck der Mahlerei sey, das liesse sich durch vollständige Induktion beweisen." (Loc. cit., p. 114.) Rio's whole work appears like an attempt to furnish this Induktion.