1UG 1 2 1980

W| rHORAW*

ABOVE
Turner on Varnishing Day by W. Parrott

OVERLEAF
A detail from The Studio of the Painter by Courbet

ENDPAPERS
A detail from L'Enseigne de Gersamt by Watteau
 Marina Vaizey

G. R Putnams Sons New York

SAN BRUNO PUBLIC LIBRARY. SAN BRUNO, CALIF.
 Contents
For my Family Introduction 8

Colour chart 10

Duccio The Rucellai Madonna 12

Giotto The Lamentation 13

Simone Martini The Annunciation 14

van Eyck The Arnolfini Marriage 14

Uccello The Battle of San Romano 16

van der Weyden The Deposition 18

Fra Angelico The Annunciation 19

Masaccio The Expulsion of Adam and Eve 20

Piero della Francesca The Baptism 20

Copyright Marina Vaizey 1979
Bellini The Feast of the Gods 22
Designed by Juanita Grout
Typeset by Keyspools Limited Mantegna The Martyrdom ofSt Sebastian 23
Printed in Italy by lego, Vicenza

van der Goes The Adoration of the Shepherds 24

Library of Congress Catalog Number:
79-64170 Botticelli The Birth of Venus 25

sbn: 399-12394-6 Ghirlandaio An Old Man and His Grandson 26

Detail from The Lamentation Detail from The Birth of Venus

Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa 26 Bruegel The Return ofthe Hunters 42

Bosch The Garden ofEarthly Delights 28 Veronese The Marriage Feast at Cana 44

Piero di Cosimo The Forest Fire 30 El Greco Christ Driving the Traders
from the Temple 45
Diirer Self-Portrait 30

The Crucifixion
Hilliard Portrait of An Unknown Man 46
Griinewald
(from the Isenheim Altarpiece) 32 Caravaggio Bacchus 47

Cranach Cupid Complaining to Venus 32 Rubens The Descent from the Cross 48

Michelangelo The Creation ofAdam 34 Hals The Laughing Cavalier 50

Giorgione The Tempest 35 Poussin A Dance to the Music of Time 50

Carpaccio St Augustine in his Study 36 van Dyck Charles I with an Equerry

and Page 52
Raphael The Alba Madonna 37
Velazquez Las Meninas 52
Titian The Venus of Urbino 38
Rembrandt Portrait of the Artist 54
Holbein The Ambassadors 39
Vermeer Head ofa Girl 55
Bronzino An Allegory 40
de Hooch The Courtyard ofa House in Delft 56
Tintoretto The Origin ofthe Milky Way 40
Hobbema The Avenue, Middelharnis 57
Clouet Lady Bathing with Children
and Attendants 42 Watteau The Embarkation for Cythera 58

Detail from The Alba Madonna Detail from The Courtyard of a House in Delft
 e

CONTENTS

Tiepolo Kaisersaal, Episcopal Palace, Constable The Hay-Wain 73

Wurzburg 59 Ingres La Grande Odalisque 74

Canaletto The Harbour of San Marco Gericault The Raft ofthe Medusa 75
with the Customs House from La Giudecca 60
Delacroix Liberty Leading the People 76
Hogarth The Graham Children 61
Courbet The Studio ofthe Painter 77
Chardin The Kitchen Maid 62
Palmer In a Shoreham Garden 78
Boucher Reclining Girl 63
Millet The Gleaners 79
Reynolds Miss Bowles and Her Dog 64
Frith Ramsgate Sands 80
Stubbs The Melbourne and Milbanke Families 64
Madox Brown The Last ofEngland 81
Gainsborough Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews 66
Millais Autumn Leaves 82
Fragonard The Swing 66
Pissarro Garden with Trees in Blossom,
Goya The Third ofMay, 1808 68
Spring, Pontoise 82

David The Death ofMarat 69 Manet Le Dejeuner sur IHerbe 84

Blake The Ancient ofDays, Degas Le Foyer de la Danse a ! Opera 85

or God Creating the Universe 70 7

Whistler Portrait of the Artist s Mother 86

Friedrich The Stages ofLife 70
Homer Breezing Up 87
Turner The Fighting Temer air 72

Detail from The Third of May 1808

, Detail from Le Dejeuner sur IHerbe
 ) 1

Cezanne La Montagne Saint e- Victoire 88 Braque Violin and Palette 105

Monet Women in a Garden 89 Hopper Nighthawks 106

Renoir Le Moulin de la Galette go Modigliani Woman with a Fan 107

Rousseau The Sleeping Gipsy 92 Duchamp Nude descending a Staircase 108

Eakins The Biglin Brothers Racing 93 Chagall I and the Village 109

Gauguin Where do we come from ? Magritte Time Transfixed no

What are we? Where are we going? 94
Dali The Persistence ofMemory 1 0

van Gogh Starry Night Saint-Remy 96

,
Bacon Figure in a Landscape 112

Seurat The Bathers, Asnieres 97 Wyeth Christinas World 113

Munch The S ere a m 98

Pollock Blue Poles 114

Toulouse-Lautrec At the Moulin Rouge 98

Whaum!
Lichtenstein 1x5

Bonnard Dining-Room on the Garden 100

Hockney Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy 1 16

Vuillard Mother and Child 101

Matisse Dance (1 102

Klimt The Kiss 103 Acknowledgments 117

Picasso Les Demoiselles d' Avignon 104 Index to Artists, Movements and Technical Terms 1 18

Detail from Starry Night, Saint-Remy Detail from The Persistence of Memory
Introduction
the paintings selected for this book are representative
of a hundred of the greatest Western painters from the
thirteenth century to the present day. They are considered to
be masterpieces either because they are supreme examples of
the work of a particular artist or because they broke new
ground and were revolutionary in their own time. They are
some of the most enduring and familiar pictures in the great
museums of the world, and a vital part of our heritage.
One of the functions of art is to reflect the world that
produced it, and variations in style, medium and subject
matter emerge from the life and attitudes of each period.
There are technical advances of course, but they do not always
produce greater art. Neither old nor new is necessarily better;
there are changes rather than improvements.
New techniques have evolved largely as a result of the
changing purpose of art. Some of the earliest works included
here are frescoes (see p. 12), a method of painting directly on
to walls, which was frequently used in medieval times to
decorate religious buildings for the Christian Church and
palaces and country villas for the ruling families. Smaller
works until the fifteenth century were mostly carried out in
tempera on wood panels (see p. 26). As art became more
general in subject matter and appeal, the medium of oils
(pigment mixed with oil) began to be developed. It has the
enormous advantage that it can be applied in an endless
variety of textures, and is infinitely versatile. In the last two
hundred years canvas has taken over from wood, and today oil
paint on canvas is by far the most widely used medium.
Labels have been invented to describe different movements
and styles, and many of them are represented in this book.
The following paragraphs briefly discuss the development
from Byzantine art in the South and Celtic in the North to the
Renaissance and Baroque eras. Other movements, spanning
much shorter periods, are covered within the text on the
relevant pictures, with an explanation here of their
chronology.
The two great centres of civilization under the Roman
Empire were Rome itself in the West and Byzantium (present-
day Istanbul) in the East. The arts had reached supreme
heights in the first century bc, but when Rome fell to invading
barbarians its culture died withand the Dark Ages
it,
submerged most of Europe for hundreds of years. A large part
of the Empire was gradually restored under Charlemagne in
the late eighth and early ninth centuries, and the culture of
Byzantium, which had continued to flourish, began to filter
through to the West.
For hundreds of years painters in Southern Europe drew on
Byzantine traditions for their ideas, and its flat, decorative and
rather severe style characterized religious pictures produced
in Italy well into the fourteenth century. It was handed down
from one artist to another, and each faithfully copied his
predecessors without attempting to produce anything original.
Patrons of the arts - the nobility and the Church - were not at
8
all interested in individuality in the pictures they
commissioned they expected painters to follow the accepted
;
formula, and produce work which glorified God in the way
they knew and understood. The painter himself was relatively
unimportant, and as a result we have very little information
concerning the identities of any artists before the mid-
thirteenth century.
Religion was the single most important influence on the
lives of Europeans in the early Middle Ages, and, in response
to its needs, artistsproduced superb illuminated manuscripts,
sculptures in stone or painted wood, and biblical pictures to
decorate the walls of the superb cathedrals and churches that
were being built all over Europe. The medieval spirit
expressed itself above all in architecture and the cathedral was
a complete art form in which paintings, carvings and sculpture
were subsidiary parts of a magnificent scheme dedicated to
God.
Once an artistic tradition has been established it requires
imagination as well as skill to shake oft its conventions and
progress to something new. But by the fourteenth century the
limitations of the Eastern religious style were beginning to be
steadily eroded - a transformation was taking place, and it led
to a much more of painting, which gradually
realistic style
spread from Italy to the rest of Europe. Its earliest signs can
be seen in the first two Italian painters included here, Duccio
and Giotto.
A more human, analytical and intellectual approach to life
began to take hold, and the focus of attention to shift from the
Church to man and the world around him. Art reflected this,
and artists from the time of Masaccio turned back for their
inspiration to the humanity and realism of the art and
attitudes of ancient Greece and Rome. This revival of classical
art came to be known as the Renaissance (or re-birth), and it
centred in a wholly realistic and scientific way on the human
figure. It was a period of discovery and invention, which
reached its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in
the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
The Church was still a powerful force, and the greatest
artists of the day worked for the Popes of Rome and decorated
chapels for the ducal families of the Italian city states. But
they also produced superb portraits, landscapes and
mythological scenes. The classical revival renewed an interest
in the myths of ancient Greece, and they became popular
subjects: the artist was provided with an excuse for painting
the naked human figure, and the splendour of the themes was
suitably impressive for the entertainment of the aristocracy.
The early Middle Ages in the North had been dominated
by the influence of Celtic rather than Byzantine art. Cultural
centres grew up as a result of trade, which produced money
for commissions, and merchants filled their houses with
paintings to show off their new prosperity. Van Eyck, van der
Goes and van der Weyden in the Low Countries, and
Griinewald, Cranach and Holbein in Germany all created
magnificent portraits and biblical scenes in response to this Paris in the 1870s Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Manet and
demand. others formed the Impressionist group. They worked in the
Largely as a result of Diirers visits to Venice in the open air, studying the effects of light and shade, and painting

fifteenth century, the ideals and achievements of the Italian everyday scenes with a beautiful clarity and freshness.
Renaissance began to influence the art of the North, and to Cezanne and the Post-Impressionists concentrated on an
result in work of an astonishing brilliance and realism. analysis of structure, and influenced Picasso and Braque, who
Many artistic movements are followed by a period when developed Cubism (see p. 105) in the early part of this
their aims are exaggerated to the point of absurdity before a century. The Dada movement (see p. 108) led to
reaction causes the birth of a new style. Mannerism emerged Surrealism, the dream-like world of Magritte and Dali, which
from the Renaissance and extended its ideas into an elegant was developed mainly in France and Germany in the 1920s
artificiality that was sometimes overdone; but it also produced and 30s. Today in Western Europe, communications are
brilliant and dazzling creations like the work of Bronzino (see easier, people travel more than ever before and are open to

p. 40). ideas and influences from all over the world, and this is
The reaction to it was the Baroque movement, when reflected in the wide variety of styles in twentieth-century art.
painting, sculpture, architecture and music were all filled with Different countries have dominated art at different times.
a new energy and emotion. was a time when
In painting it For about three centuries - from 1 250-1 550 - Italy was pre-
the problems of perspective and space were tackled with eminent, partly because it was the centre of the wealthy
tremendous dynamism and confidence, and movement, light Catholic Church, and partly because of its immense
and colour were used to achieve highly dramatic effects. The inheritance of the art of ancient Rome. In the seventeenth
age of Baroque reached its greatest heights in Italy with century, when wealth from trade produced the Golden Age of
Caravaggio in the late sixteenth century, and spread to Dutch painting, Holland was supreme. Since then shifts have
France, Spain, Germany, Austria and, to a lesser extent, the occurred as other countries have prospered, suffered political
Netherlands, over the next two hundred years. upheavals or introduced social changes and developments,
The Baroque style never acquired in the North the and have responded with work inspired by the new
artists
extravagances reached in Spain and France, largely
Italy, climate. A colour chart on
the following pages provides an
because the Protestant Church was puritanical and immediate and fascinating picture of the transitions that have
disapproved of such opulence. Calvin, the Reformation taken place over the last seven centuries.
leader, declared : Man should not paint or carve anything Much of our knowledge of the lives of early painters has
except what he can see around him, so that Gods majesty may come from the records of the Painters Guilds, formed in
not be corrupted by fantasies. Dutch painters turned medieval times. As the status of the artist was raised during
therefore to their immediate surroundings for their subjects. the High Renaissance from tradesman to gentleman, the
Scenes of the placid Dutch countryside, and the intimate guilds began to die out, and they were replaced by academies
portraits and interiors of Vermeer, Hals and de Hooch became which took over the vital job of teaching. The artist came to be
very popular. The Baroque in
greatest masters of the age of regarded more as an inspired creator than as a craftsman
the North, however, were Rubens and Rembrandt, who working to order, and he was given increasing opportunity to
transcended both conventions and traditions in their powerful express his own ideas and imagination. At the same time
and highly individual work. This immensely productive wealth was distributed more widely, and he could paint for a
period came to be known as the Golden Age of Dutch far larger audience and reflect a broader spectrum of life. His
painting. personal interpretation of his subject began to be valued above
After the long period of the Baroque came the lightness of all, and be prized as the deepest and most
art itself to
Rococo, which was mainly developed in France, Austria, expressive medium
for the communication of ideas.
Germany and Northern Italy in the early eighteenth century. Paintings of the late medieval era were easily understood by
It was characterized by the charm and elegance of the work of their audience because they conformed to a set pattern, and
Watteau, Tiepolo, Boucher and Fragonard. Neoclassicism expressed a shared outlook on life. Nowadays, when self-
followed and reacted to its frivolity with a new revival of
it, expression has become the order of the day, art is sometimes
most famous examples are the paintings of
classical art. Its complicated and enigmatic, but it is also infinitely rich,
David. This in turn caused a swing to the opposite extreme adventurous and exciting.
and produced the Romantic movement, in which artists such Each painting is discussed here in the context of its own
as Friedrich, Turner and Delacroix painted landscapes and time. Not only does each one of its period, but it
reflect the life

historical episodes charged with emotion and drama. The Pre- also communicates ideas which we can understand and relate
Raphaelite Brotherhood was created in the 1850s by a group to today. The book is arranged chronologically so that
of artists who wanted to return to the serious spirituality of art techniques and styles can easily be traced, with an Index at the
before Raphael - Millais (see p. 82) was one of its leaders. In end to artists, movements and technical terms.

9
 6o 80 1300 20 40 60 80 1400 20 40 60 80 1500 20 40 60 80 1600 20 40

Colours show the dominance of different countries throughout

the world of western art from the thirteenth century to the present day

Italian

Dutch and Flemish

French

Spanish

German
British

American
van Dyck
Belgian Rubens
I

Caravaggio
Norwegian |

Hilliard
Austrian |
El Greco

Russian |
Veronese
Bruegel
T
|

Clouet

|
Tintoretto

|
Bronzino
Holbein
(Titian

|
Raphael
|
Giorgione [

Michelangelo
Cranach
Diirer
iGrunewald
|di Cosimo
C arpaccio
|
da Vinci
Bo sch

I
[Ghi
Ghirlandaio
[Botticell
van der Goes
[Mantegna
Bellini
n
della Francesca

|
Masaccio
Fra Angelico
|
van der Weyden

|
Uccello

|
van Eyck
Martini

|
Giotto

|
Duccio

1300 1400 1 5 00 1600

8o 1600 20 40 60 80 1700 20 40 60 80 1800 20 40 60 80 1900 20 40 60

Lichtcm
Wyeth
Pollock
[Bacon
nzzj
Dali
|Magriittc
Chagall
Duchamp
[.Modig l iani |

Hopper
Braque
Picasso
I Matisse
Vuillard \

Bonnard I

[Lautrec 1 1

Munch J

f
Seurat

|
van Gogh
jGaugui
Eakins
Rousseau
|
Renoir
|
Monet
Cezann
Cezannee
|

|
Homer

O
Whistler
Degas
I Manet
Pissarro
Millais

|
Madox Brown
Frith
Courbet
|
Millet

|
Palmer
[Delacroix
[Gericault
Ingres

|
Constab le
|
Turner
Friedrich
|Friedricl

[Blake

|
David
[Goya
|| Fragonard

|
Gainsborough
Stubbs
Reynolds
Boucher
Chardin
|
Hogarth
|
Canaletto
Tiepolo
[Tiepolo
[Watteau |

[Hobbema
|
Vermeer
|de Hooch
[Rembrandt
[Velazquez T
I Poussin
Hals

1600 1700 1800 1900

 moves in a particular way. This achieve-
ment had a profound effect on the Sienese
painters who followed him.
In 1285 he painted The Rucellai
Madonna ,
a large work named after the
aristocratic Rucellai family of Florence,
who probably commissioned it and in
whose private chapel it was placed in the
church of Santa Maria Novella. The
characteristics of Byzantine art can be
seen to persist in its decorative formality:
the Madonna and the Holy Child face
towards us, the figures stylized and rather
stiff' against the gold background. The
throne is an elaborate structure, its

architectural features symbolizing the

Christian Church. But there is a new
liveliness and movement in the angels
clinging to the throne. The gilded border
of the Virgins dark blue robe flows down
and across the painting, following the
contours of her body and suggesting that
it covers a living, three-dimensional
figure, not just a painted representation.
Colour as well as line was significant in
Duccios work. He used it to create a
harmonious scheme, rather than just to
define the separate figures; and here the
variations in the angels robes - light blue
and rose, green and pale violet - make a
glowing pattern. The Virgin was tradi-
tionally portrayed in blue as it was an
expensive pigment, and its use implied
reverence and respect; it also denoted
purity since it is the colour of the sky and
therefore of heaven. The figures are
surrounded by frame decorated
a gilded
with medallions of saints and prophets.
Above all, this devotional painting
heralded a gradual new development in
the art of Siena. The beginnings of a new
humanity and warmth pervade its grave
Duccio di from the eastern civilization of Byzan-
and austere beauty, and Duccio has
Buoninsegna (1255/60-1315/18) conveyed deep religious feeling in a far
tium, but it is also more realistic
more accessible way than did the art of the
and more natural. In the Middle Ages,
The Rucellai when artists had been content to follow
Byzantine masters who preceded him.

Madonna ( after 128s )

the Byzantine tradition, their principal
aim was to express their strong religious
The Uffizi Gallery, Florence beliefs in a highly decorative and spiritual
way. Their figures were two-dimensional,
Duccio was the first and perhaps the and they made little attempt to represent
greatest of the religious painters of them accurately or realistically. Duccio
medieval Siena, then the capital of one of introduced something new: his work
Italys northern city states. His work sums marks a turning point in that it began to
up the highly formal tradition inherited express the idea that a body has life, and it

12
Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266-1337) of wall-painting in which water-based Virgin, Joseph, Mary Magdalene and
pigment, similar to watercolour, was some of the disciples cluster round in
The applied directly on to wet plaster. The attitudes of grief. Their feelings are
paint and plaster then fused together as expressed in a new and lifelike repertoire
Lamentation (c. 1306-13)
they dried. It was used most often in the of gestures. The Virgin cradles her son on
Fresco decoration of religious buildings in Italy. her lap, fiercely protective of him, and
The frescoes for the Arena Chapel were Mary Magdalene holds his wounded feet.
The Arena Chapel, Padua
commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni, a A group of angels, materializing from the
member of a wealthy banking family of clouds, weep and wring their hands in
Giotto was to Florentine painting what Padua. distraction. On the rock is the skeleton of a
Duccio was to that of Siena - a pathfinder decorated the chapel with
Giotto tree symbolizing the Tree of Knowledge,
- and his work had a far-reaching effect. scenes from the lives of Joachim and Anna which was said to have withered and died
He moved away entirely from stylized (the parents of the Virgin Mary), the when Adam from grace.
fell

formality, and gave his figures a greater Virgin herself and Christ her son, which Separating us from a full view of
degree of solidity and movement than had together provide a powerful narrative of Christs body are two cloaked and hooded
been seen before in Western art. His work the lives of Christs family. Each scene is figures, their backs towards us. Compared
represents a breakthrough in the way it set in a separate rectangular border, with the stiffness of Byzantine art, in

expressed human emotion with imag- painted to resemble a mosaic, in which are which figures by tradition had faced the
ination and understanding. He applied to small insets depicting Old Testament spectator, this was a remarkably informal
his religious paintings a close observation stories. and realistic device. As a result of it we are
of the world around him, so that they are The Lamentation is simple and dra- drawn into the group, as if we are looking
believable and relate closely to life. matic in composition. A large outcrop of over their shoulders and sharing their
His success produced commissions in rock leads sharply downwards from the involvement in the tragedy. Giotto has
Padua, Naples, Milan and Rome, but right in a diagonal line, so that our depicted the event with great imagination,
most of his life was spent in his home town attention is focused on the group around and conveys the human reactions to it

of Florence. Much of his work was done in the dead Christ. His body has been taken with a compassion that brings it alive.
the technique known as fresco, a method down from the cross, and the figures of the

13

ABOVE
Simone Martini (1284-1344)
The Annunciation (i 333 )
Fresco
The Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The Annunciation Simone Martinis mas-
,
terpiece, was painted for the chapel of
Saint Ansanus in the Cathedral of Siena,
and it is as perfect an example of pure
craftsmanship as anything produced in
fourteenth-century Italy.
Simone Martini has depicted with
great elegance andeconomy the moment
when the Virgin is visited by the Angel
Gabriel, and told that she is to be the
mother of Christ. The gold background
and the slim, elongated figures, ethereal
and highly stylized, reflect centuries of
Byzantine religious tradition; but their
gestures, the softly curving outlines of
their bodies and the delicate colours
suggest their tenderness and gentle piety.
These fine lines and graceful contours,
weaving a pattern throughout the com-
position, are typical characteristics of
Simone Martinis work.
The Angels message announcing
Marys destiny is written in Latin across
the space between them. Her hand marks
her place in a devotional book, and at her
feet is a golden vase containing four lilies,
the accepted symbols of purity.
Gabriels head is wreathed with olive
leaves, signifying peace, and he holds an
olive branch instead of the traditional lily;
this was a gesture in support of Siena
because the lily was the official emblem of
the city state of Florence, and Florence
was Sienas greatest rival. Framed by the
arch is a dove, the symbol of the Holy
Spirit, surrounded by the heads of winged
angels.
The traditional white of Gabriels
robes, the deep rich blue of the Virgins
gold-bordered mantle and her red under-
skirt provide a magnificent contrast to the
gold background. The burnished gold of
the vase, the haloes and the Angels wings
is intricately patterned.
In the panels to right and left are the
figures of Saint Judith and Saint Ansanus
(paintedto Simone Martinis specifi-
cationsby his brother-in-law Lippo
Memmi). Ansanus was a young nobleman
of third-century Siena, an early Christian
who was betrayed by his father, and
martyred for his belief by being thrown
into a vat of burning oil. He became the
patron saint of Siena, and naturally his
chapel was very important.
Simone Martini was a pupil of Duccio,
and his refined and elegant style was one
of the greatest features of medieval
Sienese art. He worked for Robert of
Anjou, the French overlord of Naples and
Sicily, and ended his days at the Popes
court at Avignon.
OPPOSITE
Jan van Eyck (1390-1441)
The Arnolfini
Marriage (i 434 )
The National Gallery, London
In the fifteenth century the Belgian city of
Bruges was one of the principal artistic
centres of Europe. It was a prosperous
seaport until its river silted up around
1500, and its wealthy merchants commis-
sioned paintings to celebrate themselves,
their families and their success. Artists
reached new, triumphant heights hitherto
unequalled in Europe, and Jan van Eyck
was one of the most remarkable of them
all.
For a long time he was credited with the
actual invention of oil painting, and
although this has been disproved, it is
certain that he perfected a medium of
pigment, oil and varnish which has
allowed his rich colour to survive almost
unchanged.
The Arnolfini Marriage was probably
the first double full-length contemporary
portrait in the North. It was painted for a
merchant of Bruges, and it is generally
thought that the picture celebrates the
marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini, a silk
merchant from Tuscany trading in the
Netherlands, to Giovanna Cenami. The
artist was witness to the ceremony, and as
proof the words Johannes de Eyck fuit
hie. 1434. (Jan van Eyck was here) are
inscribed on the wall above the mirror.
The room is lit by clear, cool daylight,
and each object stands out with crystal
clarity on the highly finished surface of
the painting, showing van Eycks remark-
able feeling for texture and the effects of
light. It is no chance collection of items:
everything has a direct relevance to
marriage, or to the circumstances of this
particular marriage. The house itself is
substantially built of brick, and the rich
clothes of the couple, the hangings of the
bed, the Turkish carpet, the mirror on the
wall, even the oranges which were hard to
obtain in the North, are all signs of their
prosperity. The apple on the window
ledge may be used to symbolize the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge a single candle,
;
representing the Spirit of God, burns in
the ornate brass chandelier; the frame of
the mirror contains ten scenes from the
Passion of Christ, and next to it hangs a
rosary made of crystal or amber, reflecting
the light. The blue of the womans sleeves
and underskirt may be used to denote
purity (and it is more likely that her and even the small dog at the womans feet of marriage in both worldly and spiritual
voluminous dress was the fashion than is recognized as a symbol of fidelity. terms in this unidealized portrait, and
that its folds conceal her pregnancy, as has An informal atmosphere is created by reveals his extraordinarily accomplished
been suggested). On the wooden chair the presence of the dog and the mans technique in its accuracy, clarity of colour
beyond the canopied bed is the tiny clogs lying askew on the floor, which adds and perception of the realities of life.
carved figure of a saint, possibly St to the astonishing realism of the painting.
Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth; Van Eyck has defined the relationship

*5
Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) victorious over Siena in 1432, provided an The emphasized by the orange
division is

ideal subject. It was commissioned by the and the hedge of wild

trees at either side
The Battle of San great Medici family for their new palace in roses in full bloom, which indicate the
Florence, and Uccello painted three luxuriance of the surrounding landscape.
Romano (c. 1455)
episodes from the event. They would have The diagonal lances, the rearing horses in
The National Gallery, London been hung as a continuous frieze, provid- their fine coloured bridles, and the
ing gorgeous propaganda for Florentine helmets and lances scattered on the
Paolo Uccello was born in Florence, courage and success. ground, all increase the impact of this
where he trained in the workshop of the The hero of the battle was the Flor- vigorous and captivating scene.
sculptor and goldsmith Ghiberti, and entine warrior Niccolo da Tolentino, Uccello provided not only a highly
entered the Painters Guild. He worked in who recklessly pursued the Sienese and decorative and interesting painting for
a variety of media: on wood panels, on held them until reinforcements arrived to his aristocratic clients but one that was
canvas, and even in mosaic; he designed save the day. Here he can be seen on a designed to stir the blood with patriotic
stained glass windows for the cathedral in powerful white charger in the centre of pride.
Florence, and produced a famous wall the action. He is in fact directing oper-
painting of an equestrian figure, Sir John ations rather than actually fighting; his
Hawkwood, an English soldier who ser- face is exposed, and in his magnificent hat
ved the Italians with conspicuous success. and elegant short cloak, more like cere-
In his strange, highly individual and monial than battle dress, he makes an
lively paintings, one of the most notable impressive sight. His young page rides
features is his interest in foreshortening behind him carrying his helmet, and
and perspective. The effects that could be another soldier holds a banner bearing his
achieved with them were a constant heraldic device.
source of fascination to him. His colours The composition is divided into two
were not true to life but were used to sections: the colourful and dramatic
create a decorative and his
design; foreground, with its convincing portrayal
paintings were filled with charming and of figures in action (including the fore-
delicate detail made up of patterns of lines shortened knight prostrate on the
and spirals. ground); and the steeply sloping hill
Uccello had another powerful gift - he behind, which is little more than a
could tell a story - and the Rout of San decorative backdrop where Uccello could
Romano, a battle in which Florence was indulge to the full his love of perspective. right Detail from The Buttle oj San Romano

16
O/
Rogier van der colours, particularly gold, and for the Mary Magdalene and St John.
Weyden (c. 1399-1464)
emotional quality of his religious paint- The colours are clear and luminously
ings, in marked contrast to van Eycks beautiful. The materials fall in softly

The Deposition or ,
worldliness. gathered folds. Joseph of Arimathea is

This major work was bought by Maria, richly robed in gold brocade, and is
The Descent from Queen of Hungary, who left it to her plumper than the other figures, indicating
the Cross (1435) nephew Philip 11 of Spain, and as a result his affluent and influential position in life.
it entered the Spanish Royal Collection. It was he who received permission from
The Prado, Madrid The shallow space of the composition Pilate to lay the body of Christ in his own
recalls early relief sculpture: the figures tomb.
Litde is known about van der Weydens are symmetrically arranged on either side The rise and fall of the figures creates a
early life and the information we have is of the body of Christ, giving a perfect flowing rhythm across the painting, and
based largely on circumstantial evidence. balance to the painting. But at the same links one to another so that they are held
We do know that most of it was spent in time they are portrayed with all the together physically as well as emotionally
Brussels, where he had become city realism and energy that was sweeping in their despair. This passionate ex-
painter by 1436. He acquired a consider- through Western painting at the time. pression of deep religious feeling makes
able reputation and a large fortune, and is The shape of the cross is repeated in the The Deposition one of the great works of
considered to be, with van Eyck, the shape of the painting itself, and its sharp Northern fifteenth-century painting.
greatest Flemish artist of the first half of vertical line emphasizes the limpness of
the fifteenth century. Their styles are very Christs pale figure. The line of his body is
different: van der Weyden is especially echoed by the attitude of the Virgin Mary,
renowned for his use of pale bright fainting in her distress and supported by

18
 :

Fra Angelico (c. 1400-55) the convent of San Marco in Florence no doubt touch the ceiling; yet the
with some fifty frescoes. Of them all The springtime scene is convincing, and
The Annunciation (c.i 43 6) Annunciation is probably the most fa- painted with great care and attention to
mous. It was painted on a wall of the detail, particularly in the intricate dec-
Fresco
convent cloister, and the receding vaulted oration of the Angels robe and the
Museo di San Marco, Florence arches of the outside loggia, in which the colourful patterning of his wings.
Virgin sits, reflect the frescos surround- The figures have a weightlessness and
Fra Angelico was both a Florentine ings as well as giving space and depth to its about them which makes them
stillness
painter and a Dominican friar. He made composition. Inscribed on the border of seem more spiritual. It is a painting about
several trips to Rome to execute papal the loggias stone floor is a quotation in the communication of faith, and as the
commissions; and he was prior of San Latin from a twelfth-century hymn Hail : friars walked of San Marco
in the cloister
Domenico in Fiesole from 1449 to 1452. Mother, noble resting place of all the Holy the event depicted must have seemed very
He was known as the Blessed Angelico, Trinity.Along the edge of the floor is a real to them.
and during his lifetime both his gentle, reminder to the friars of the convent
disciplined personality and his art were When you come before the image of the
held in the highest esteem. The tender- spotless Virgin, beware lest through
ness and delicate beauty of his work were carelessness the Ave be left unsaid.
ideally suited for the specific religious The soft pale colours and compara-
purpose for which it was produced. tively simple structure give the painting a
With the help of many assistants, Fra sparkling serenity, and a directness that is

Angelico decorated the cloister, the cells, charming, if a little naive. If Mary and the
the common rooms and the corridors of Angel were to stand up, their heads would

19
 an angel flourishes a sword, both to urge
them on and to guard the gates of the
Garden. The angel is amply clothed in
flame-coloured draperies, accentuating
the vulnerable state of the figures of Adam
and Eve, naked but for a garland of leaves.
Eves hands, one covering her groin, the
other her breasts, are in the traditional
pose of female nudes derived from
classical statues of Venus.
Her mouth is open in a scream of
anguish; perhaps she already anticipates
the pain she must soon suffer in child-
birth, now that the gift of immortality has
been taken away from them. Adam holds
his hands to his eyes, his shoulders bowed
and his whole attitude expressing his
despair.
The
figures are real, and not idealized
in any way. They are made of flesh and
blood, substantial and entirely three-
dimensional. Adams feet are placed
firmly on the ground, and they are bearing
his weight. Light falls on the scene in a
natural manner, and shadows define the
shapes of the human figures. As a result of
accurate observation and scientific study,
Masaccio was able to convey human
emotion in an astonishingly convincing
manner, and he reveals the agonizing
plight of Adam and Eve in a painting of
powerful simplicity.

RIGHT
Piero della Francesca (1410-92)

The Baptism (c.1442)

The National Gallery, London

Piero della Francesca was born and lived

most of his life in the small town of Borgo
San Sepolcro in Umbria. From Uccello he
learned the new science of perspective,
and he may also have studied with Fra
Angelico.
ABOVE Italian Renaissance. He created dramatic He was well known in his own time, and
effects by his use of space, light and worked for celebrated patrons. His art was
Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser perspective; and in the twenty-seven long neglected, but in the nineteenth
Giovanni di Mone) (1401-29) years of his life he developed an austere century his reputation began to soar, and
realism and economy of style which today he is one of the most popular Italian
The Expulsion of Adam influenced many other artists. painters of the Early Renaissance.
and Eve (c. 1425-7) He was responsible for several of the He was passionately interested in
frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in mathematics and problems of perspective,
Fresco Florence. One of these, The Expulsion and there are several books by him on
,

shows the figures of Adam and Eve as they these topics. His paintings were con-
The Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del
Carmine, Florence leave the Garden of Eden after their structed with great precision, and this,
banishment. There seems to be a physical combined with his use of pale colours,
The tragically short-lived Masaccio was force behind them, driving them through gives them the timelessness and serenity
the first great Florentine painter of the the gates of Paradise; and over their heads for which he is best known.

20
 The Baptism is an early work and was cal, has an exceptionally satisfying sense baptism. The winding river Jordan,
created as part of an altarpiece for the of balance. Dominating it are the figures transposed to Umbria, reflects the sky, the
priory church of San Giovanni Battista in of Christ and John the Baptist, who is scenery and the background figures. The
his native town. From the nave of the anointing Christs head with water from a arrangement may look simple, even ran-
church the eye would have been drawn shallow bowl. Their two heads, and John dom, but in fact the distribution of the
directly to the central figure of Christ, the Baptists outstretched arm, are out- figures and the spaces between them is
with the dove of the Holy Spirit above his lined against the clear blue sky, and this carefully calculated to create an atmos-
head, and the scene framed by the device effectively focuses our attention on phere of stillness and tranquillity. The
rounded arch. them both. drawing is and exact, and the
definite
The calm and statuesque figures ba- The scene is framed by the dark leaves figures solid and rounded, their feet
thed in brilliantly clear light are set of a tree, whose pale slim trunk repeats the accurately foreshortened. The soft clear
against a background of Umbrian valleys vertical lines of the figures. To the left are colours stand out sharply in the light, and
and hills, Pieros own native landscape. three angels, and in the middle ground accentuate the peace and calm of this
The composition, although not symmetri- other people can be seen preparing for inspirational painting.

21
Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430-1516) subjects, devising beautiful landscape is the young Bacchus in a wreath of vine
settings for them, and near the end of his leaves; helmeted Mercury, messenger of
The Feast of the long life he extended his repertoire to the gods, watches Priapuss preparations
include episodes from ancient myths. The for seduction with cool indifference; next
Gods (1514) Feast of the Gods was painted when Bellini to him Jupiter, king of the gods, wreathed
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC was in his eighties, and was commissioned with laurel, raises a wine goblet to his lips.

by the Duke of Ferrara (aristocrats liked His wife Juno is at his side, and in the tree
to keep the company of the gods). The on the right is a peacock, a symbol of
The art of Venice is radiant with colour. story comes from the Latin poet Ovids Juno. Seated in the centre is Neptune, god
In the island city itself brilliant clear light, description of a banquet in the country, an of the sea, with his trident at his feet.

intensified by the reflections from the ideal subject in that it enabled the artist to Musical instruments, platters of fruit,

water, exaggerates outlines and colours; paint flesh, clothing, landscape and still water jugs, elaborately decorated dishes,
and for Giovanni Bellini, and for other life together, as well as mastering a and the magnificent landscape setting
Venetian painters after him, colour and complex group composition. make an extravagant and fascinating
light were supremely important. At the extreme right, resting against a composition. It would be hard to imagine
Bellini came of a family of painters: his tree, is a sleeping nymph, and Priapus, the a richer or more luxuriant feast. The
father Jacopo worked in Florence and mischievous god of fertility, is preparing subtle blends of colour, used in unusually
Verona as well as Venice; and his brother to pounce on her. To the left is a satyr - a imaginative combinations, and the won-
Gentile was a very successful portrait spirit of the woods and mountains - and derful clarity of light are superb examples
painter, and a recorder of ceremonial the boisterous country god Silenus, with a of Bellinis work, and of the art of
occasions. But it was Giovanni who set his keg and his arm round the ass at
at his belt sixteenth-century Venice.
mark most significantly on Venetian his side. In between them, serving and
painting. being served at the feast, are a host of
He painted portraits and religious other nymphs and gods : at the keg of wine

22
Andrea Mantegna (1431-1505)

The Martyrdom of St
Sebastian (c. 1460)

The Louvre, Paris

For over half a century Andrea Mantegna

was probably the most influential painter
of Northern Italy. His work is character-
ized by decisive line, subdued colour,
and a highly skilled use of perspective,
which gives it depth and reality. He was a
master of the foreshortened figure. His
father was a carpenter, but at an early age
the boy was apprenticed to and legally
adopted by a painter in Padua, a highly
cultured city with one of the oldest
universities in Europe. By 1448, aged
seventeen, Mantegna had become an
independent master.
There are three surviving paintings by
him on the subject of St Sebastian, a
Roman soldier who was sentenced to
death by the Emperor Diocletian for his
belief in Christianity. Sebastian was
topical because he was traditionally
appealed to for protection from the
plague, which was rife in Mantegnas
time. His martyrdom was a popular
subject as it allowed the artist to con-
centrate, with due piety, on the near
all

naked male figure. For Mantegna it was

also an excuse to demonstrate his
scholarly passion for the ruins of ancient
Rome.
The figure of Sebastian is stone-like
and sculptural, reminiscent of ancient
Roman statues, and in spite of the arrows
piercing the flesh, and the rivulets of
blood, it has a feeling of strength and
dominance. Parallel to his feet is a
remnant of a Roman statue, a carved stone
foot in a stone sandal. Sebastians arms
and feet are tied to a fluted column, part of
an ancient Roman temple.
There is a wealth of detail in the
imaginary classical background magni- :

ficent ruins perched precipitously on

rocky crags, with a fortified town on the
topmost peak, and fantastic stylized
clouds floating overhead. The painting
has an austere but undeniable grandeur,
and it is easy to understand why princes
and potentates vied to own the work of
Mantegna.

23
Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-82) banker and agent of the powerful Medici work, their faces stubbled and their
family of Florence. When it was finished it clothes tough and simple. In the distance
The Adoration of was shipped to Italy and placed over the the hovering white figure of an angel is

high altar in the Portinari family chapel. It giving the news of the holy birth to
the Shepherds
is a triptych, a three-panelled painting shepherds in the fields. All around and
( from The Portinari with folding outer wings. The side panels above the group are more angels, crowned
depict the Portinari family in attitudes of and richly dressed, and all quite small to
Altarpiece) (1474-76)
prayer, surrounded by their patron saints. emphasize the importance of the human
The Uffizi Gallery, Florence (Religious paintings of this period often figures.
included their commissioning patron to In the foreground is a sheaf of wheat, a
Hugo van der Goes was Flemish, and one indicate his piety.) symbol of Jerusalem, and vases of iris and
of the most gifted of all the early painters The centre panel, illustrated here, has columbine. The iris is the flower of the
of the Netherlands. He worked in Bruges, at its focal point the new-born Christ, Virgin Mary and columbine a symbol of
its richest city, and by 1474 he was Dean small, naked, and radiating light. The the Holy Ghost, because it was thought
of the Painters Guild. ground is tilted towards us to draw the outline of the flower was like a dove in
The Portinari Altarpiece is one of some attention more closely to his figure. flight. The arch of the tower behind the
sixteen of his surviving paintings. It is Dressed in dark blue and gazing down at stable yard bears the harp of theHouse of
very large - over eight feet high and nine- him in adoration is the Virgin Mary, and David, denoting the ancestry of Christ.
teen feet wide - and was commissioned on the right are three shepherds, kneeling Curiosity and wonder can be seen in the
around 1474 by Tommaso Portinari, a or standing, their hands rough from hard faces of the adoring shepherds, and Mary,

24
Joseph and the angels are grave and executed for Lorenzo di Pierfrancescos not naturalistic, but are used to create a
dignified, conveying to us a feeling of awe Villa di Costello near Florence. feeling of movement about to be resolved.
and reverence at this strange and wonder- was unaffected by the passion
Botticelli With one arm Venus partly covers her
ful birth. for realism that was current in his day. In breasts,and with the other she artfully
The ambitious and dramatic scale of The Birth of Venus he makes little attempt arranges her hair as a modest covering in
the work, its exalted spirituality, and the topersuade us of the reality of the scene, the traditional pose of classical statues of
superb handling of the oil technique then but we are completely convinced that we the goddess of love. Her left leg bears
being developed in the North ensured van are witness to a splendid moment in the most of her body weight so that her hip is

der Goess fame in both Florence and the world of ancient myth. thrust gently forward, giving a sinuous S
Netherlands. Legend tells us that Venus, the Roman curve to her body. There is flowing,
goddess of love and fertility, was born curving line throughout the composition,
from sea-foam, and here she is seen slowly in the sharply defined, highly stylized

ABOVE floating on her shell-boat in to the shore. shoreline, the beautifully arched feet of
The navigation of her journey is under- the human figures and the movement of
Sandro Botticelli (e. 1445-1510) taken by two intertwined figures, male drapery and hair.
and female, representing the winds. The The landscape is decorative rather than
The Birth of Venus male, Zephyr, the west wind of spring- realistic : the waves of the sea are indicated
time, supports the female, who is prob- by little white V shapes; the tree trunks
( mid- 1 480s)
ably Flora, his wife. Just where the sea are slim brown rods, and the wings of the
The Uffizi Gallery, Florence touches the shore, a young woman winds and the sharp spiky leaves of the
adorned with leaves and flowers steps trees are outlined in gold. There is no
Botticelli was born in Florence and spent forward to envelop Venus in a flowered physical depth or perspective in the
most of his life there. Many of his cloak. painting; but this heightens the feeling
paintings have devotional subjects and Venus herself, her wide grey eyes that we are present at a mysterious and
were designed for specific settings in gentle and a little pensive, embodies here magical event, depicted with the delicate
churches and other religious buildings. not sensual love but perfect beauty. The beauty which characterizes Botticellis
But he was also the first painter of the draperies of the winds, the flowing clothes work.
Renaissance to use classical myths as of Venuss welcoming attendant, and
central subject matter in his work. The her own glorious golden hair flickering
Birth of Venus was almost certainly through the painting like flames, are

25
BELOW of three years to learn the fresco tech- before the invention of oils. It dried
nique. rapidly, and was then coated with an oil
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94)
Ghirlandaio was responsible for the varnish. (In this portrait, the varnish
Pope
An Old Man and his fresco decorations of the library of
Sixtus iv in Rome, Santa Maria Novella
has unfortunately cracked, causing the
scratches on the old mans forehead.)
Grandson ( c . 1480) in Florence, and part of the Sistine An existing drawing shows us that the
Chapel. He painted scenes of Florentine man was originally drawn not from life
The Louvre, Paris
ceremonial and biblical episodes, some- but with his eyes closed in death, and that
times featuring his patrons quite promi- the painting was skilfully adapted from
Domenico Ghirlandaio was a highly nently in the role of a servant or attendant. the drawing. Even the grotesque defor-
successful fifteenth-century Florentine One of his most tender portraits is An mity of the nose (which the artist modified
painter. He ran a flourishing workshop Old Man and his Grandson. It is painted a little) cannot detract from the gentleness
with his two younger brothers Davide on a wood panel in tempera, a mixture of of his expression. His face is full of
and Benedetto, in which the young powder colour, egg yolk and water which affection and interest as he looks down at
Michelangelo was apprenticed for a term was the conventional medium of painting the little boy and embraces him. The
childs small hand on his grandfathers
chest and the look of trust in his eyes
imply a strong emotional bond between
them. The mans face reveals the wisdom
and understanding as well as the physical
deterioration of old age, whereas the boy
has all the beauty and innocence of youth.
His gaze, attentive and expectant, sug-
gests that he is listening to a story at his
grandfathers knee.
The romanticized landscape through
the window, painted in fine detail, con-
trasts with the plain interior and gives
distance and light to the composition and ;

the soft blue-grey and black of the wall

and window frame, and the mans silver
hair, set off the rich red robes of the two
figures magnificently.

RIGHT
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Mona Lisa (1503?)

The Louvre, Paris

Leonardo, born in the small village of

Vinci in Tuscany, was the illegitimate son
of a Florentine notary. He studied under
Verrochio, who is said to have given up
painting almost entirely as a result of his
pupils outstanding ability.
He was the greatest universal genius of
the Italian Renaissance, when intellectual
and artistic supremacy were admired
above all, and the ideal man was accom-
plished in almost every sphere. Apart

26
from his skill as a painter and sculptor, he
was a brilliant scientist, musician, poet,
military engineer and inventor, with one
of the most versatile minds in history. He
came near to discovering the circulation of
the blood, made preliminary designs for
several aircraft, a submarine and the first
armoured vehicle; he made intense stud-
ies of anatomy, the formation of rocks

and the fall of drapery, and produced

endless notes and drawings that reveal his
curiosity and inventiveness. His working
methods were slow and his interests so
varied that he rarely completed a project -
it was abandoned as soon as he felt he had

solved the problem. As a result very few

finished paintings by him exist.
He worked on the Mona Lisa for nearly
four years, and it was completed around
1503. Mona comes from madonna mean-
ing madam, and the woman is thought to
be the wife of the silk merchant Francesco
del Giocondo (the picture is also known
as La Gioconda). She would have been
about twenty-four when Leonardo began
her portrait. Her identity is not entirely
certain - the painting itself has few
specific clues - and the power of the
picture has probably been enhanced by
the mystery surounding it.
We know the figure was framed origin-
ally by two stone columns as well as by the
parapet behind her. Her body is turned at
a slight angle and her eyes gaze directly
towards us. Her strangely enigmatic
expression has fascinated the world for
hundreds of years. Her lips show the trace
of a smile and her penetrating eyes under
heavy lids appear to be studying us rather
than the other way around.
A wide forehead, and eyebrows pluck-
ed to the point of invisibility, were marks
of beauty in the Renaissance world, and
her hair parted in the centre and drawn
away from her face accentuates these
features and heightens her air of com-
posure. Chestnut curls falling to her
shoulders are covered by a veil of fine
gauze. Her hands are folded in her lap,
and her long delicate fingers rest on the
shining folds of her dress.
An imaginary landscape provides a
muted backcloth. Its jagged bare moun- twilight provided the perfect atmosphere
tains, dissected by a riverwinding
and a for portraits, warming skin tones and
road, tower starkly over the sea, and its softening the contours of a face.
wildness and hostility provide a marked By the time he painted the Mona Lisa
contrast to the calm face of the woman. Leonardos reputation was firmly estab-
The paint is applied with fine detailed lished. He reached unequalled heights in
brushwork that reveals the textures of an age of great artistic achievement, and
drapery, hair and flesh. The evening light his paintings and drawings have been
and the sombre colours of the womans copied and circulated ever since. The
classically simple dress throw her face and Mona Lisa has undoubtedly become the
neck into relief. Leonardo believed that most famous picture in the world.

27
 JpHl w****C'
v x
r

\WES 4
'

? '1

A^

Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) destruction of the earth by flood). When buildings, landscapes of parks and gar-
the wings are opened they reveal astonish- dens and dark firelit inferno, exposes
The Garden of Earthly ing scenes in subtle colour and mesmeriz- humanity in a truly terrifying light. In the
ing detail. On the left isthe Garden of central panel a wild sexual orgy is
DellghtS (after 1500)
Eden, in the centre the Garden of Earthly depicted showing every imaginable aspect
The Prado, Madrid Delights, which is thought to depict the of lust, the cause of mans downfall, and
world before the Flood, and on the right a revealing his ignorance and corruption.
The Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch terrifying vision of Hell. Writhing human bodies are dwarfed by
was one of the worlds greatest masters of The meaning of the work as a whole is massive birds, fish and fruits: one figure
fantasy. His haunted work, full of mon- uncertain, but the sense of a powerful carries off another on his back in a huge
sters and devils, reflected the superstitious allegory is beyond doubt. Over half of mussel shell; a man and a woman are
and religious beliefs which had survived Boschs surviving paintings have religious encased in a bubble on the back of a
from the early Middle Ages. He fathered subjects, and his work can only be strange sea creature; strawberries, fish,

no school of followers in his own time, interpreted in a religious framework; his and animals are all
flowers, exotic birds
although he was a distinguished artist, but art was, as a Spanish cleric remarked, a involved with men and women in the act
his influence has continued for nearly five painted satire on the sins and ravings of of love. People can be seen riding an
hundred years, and is easy to detect in the man. It studied those human feelings assortment of animals in a ring in the
work of the Surrealists of the twentieth which in the Middle Ages were thought to middle distance: pigs, camels, horses,
century (see pp. no, hi). be the result of divine or devilish inspira- goats, unicorns and strange un-
Four paintings on a series of folding tion. Bosch was painting at the climax of recognizable creatures that are part-
panels make up The Garden of Earthly a period when people firmly believed in animal, part-bird. In the work as a whole
Delights. When the outer wings are closed the existence of grotesque demons; it was there are something like a thousand
we see the Third Day of Creation (or, also a time of robust, even cruel humour. human figures.
according to a recent interpretation, the This great work, with its imaginary Boschs dazzling inventiveness seems

28
 ' ' '

J'

A J - / ^ x'

endless. He has created an extraordinary,

fascinating fantasy world, full of weird
exaggerations and distortions, but he has
done it with such care and detail that he
has turned its nightmarish terrors into
reality.

My s
mm . 4 '
i

(1HR
V
a
m
P di -
.

\
RIGHT Detail from the central panel of
The Garden of Earthly Delights
 ;

ABOVE of bears crawling over a grassy bank, and meticulously detailed woodcuts
and
several different types of birds are all drawings - The Praying Hands
The
Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521)
Young Hare - are known universally. His
,

fleeing for their lives across every open

space. In the distance on the man right a genius lay mainly in his draughtsmanship,
The Forest Fire (1480s)
and woman are rushing down a hill from
a and he has been described as the greatest
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford a small hut, and a little nearer a man with a mind that ever expressed itself in line.
yoke on his shoulders strides after his From 1490-94 he travelled widely, and
The Florentine painter Piero di Cosimo cows. after his marriage made his first major trip
was an original and eccentric man. In his Piero di Cosimo has caught beautifully to Italy. He was the first important
later years he lived as a recluse, and the light and heat of a forest on fire, with German artist to do so; and it was largely
Vasari, the sixteenth-century author of the flames leaping up through the leaves, through him that the academic ideas and
The Lives of the Artists ,
tells us that, when and smoke billowing out through the stark artistic achievements of the Italian
boiling up the glue for his paintings, Piero bare branches. Glimpses of distant moun- Renaissance were introduced to the
di Cosimo would also boil a huge quantity tains, framed by two groups of trees, give North.
of eggs, perhaps fifty at a time, which he a great feeling of space, as though we are In this half-length self-portrait, paint-
ate as hunger moved him. He found seeing vast stretches of the world, and ed when he was twenty-six, Durer has
artistic inspiration all around him, even in all the creatures that inhabit it. portrayed himself as a perfect example of
the stains and textures on the walls, and the Renaissance universal man. Not only
some of his work seems to be as bizarre as isthis one of the first self-portraits in
his life, but it has a delightful innocence Northern European which the artist
art in
and charm. is shown an individual study rather
in
The Forest Fire once known simply as
,
than as part of a group, but it also makes a
Landscape with Animals is one of the first
,
bid for the status of the artist as gentle-
landscapes in Western art in which man man. (The profession of painter at that
features incidentally and not as the time ranked low in the social scale.)
fairly

principal subject. It is one of four panels Diirers success had made him a rich man
illustrating the life of primitive man, and RIGHT and here his hair is elaborately curled, his
it is part of Piero di Cosimos search for an clothes are fine, and his hands immacu-
Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528)
acceptable explanation of the early history lately gloved in grey kid. A cloak is draped
of the world and mans part in it. The Self-Portrait (i 49 8)
round his shoulders with a casual, stylish
subject, taken from the writer Vitruvius, air, and over his shirt of bleached and

is mans accidental discovery of fire. The Prado, Madrid gathered linen, trimmed with gold bro-
The shows the flight of
painting cade, is an elegant white doublet edged in
animals, birds and men when fire sweeps Diirer was born in Nuremburg, the son of black, with separate oversleeves and a
through the forest in which they live. a goldsmith, and he received early train- dashing tasselled cap. The serious intelli-
Amongst them are strange mythical ing in the art of drawing from his father. gence of his character can be seen in his
creatures, some with human faces, as well His first self-portrait, drawn when he was dispassionate objective gaze. The snow-
as a variety of recognizable animals and thirteen, reveals his precocious genius; covered mountains through the window
birds. Movement is suggested rather than its self-analysis is remarkable. Success are reminiscent perhaps of Dtirers travels
accurately portrayed, and the rather came early, for by his twenties he was across the Alps.
stylized leaps of the figures reveal the renowned throughout Europe and It is a portrait of self-scrutiny, maybe

problems experienced by painters of the
Early Renaissance in showing movement
convincingly. United by a common
danger, lions, cattle, deer, pigs, a family
acknowledged as Germanys leading ar-
Vasari tells us that the entire world
tist.
was astonished by his mastery. Diirers
output was enormous, and many of his
even self-promotion, and it embodies a
great deal of the artists character and
attitudes as well as his genius as a
draughtsman.

3
 already turning black with putrefaction.
The horizontal beam of the cross is

dragged down slightly by the dead weight

of his body.
The agony of the Crucifixion is de-
picted starkly and simply. There is

nothing romantic about it; the harsh

reality of the event is portrayed with a
passionate accuracy that makes it all the
more heartrending.

RIGHT
Lucas Cranach (1472-1553)

Cupid Complaining to
Venus (c. 1530)
The National Gallery, London

Littleis known of Cranachs early life but ;

by about 1500 he was living in Vienna, a

successful painter of religious pictures
and By 1505 he had become
portraits.
ABOVE fying in Christian religious art. The scene court painter to the Elector Frederick of
is bleak and dark, and the cross is set in a Saxony in Wittenberg, where he pros-
Matthias
rocky, barren landscape. To the left, in pered, twice became mayor, and was
Griinewald (c . 1470/80-1528) white, the swooning Virgin Mary is granted a coat-of-arms by his patron. He
supported by St John, into whose care was extremely prolific, and his sons Hans
The Crucifixion Christ had entrusted her; Mary and Lucas Cranach the Younger helped
( from The Isenheim Magdalene, her long golden hair rippling him in his busy studio.
down her back, kneels at the foot of the Cranachs fame rests on three foun-
Altarpiece ) (c. 1510-15) cross, her hands raised in prayer; and to dations: his detailed landscape work and
the right St John the Baptist points to the the expressiveness of his figures; his
Unterlinden Museum, Colmar
figure of the dead Christ. Framed by his numerous and por-
religious paintings,
arm is the inscription in Latin, It is fitting traits of his friend Martin Luther and his
Griinewald was, with Diirer, one of the that He increase and I diminish. The family; and his mythological scenes,
greatest German painters of the sixteenth lamb at his feet holds a thin cross of reeds, which centred on the female nude and
century. Little of his life was recorded and and blood, representing the Holy Sacra- were enormously popular.
few of his works have survived, but The ment, pours from a wound in its chest into Cupid Complaining to Venus is signed
Isenheim Altarpiece is undoubtedly a a golden chalice. with a winged dragon, a device taken by
painting of genius. It was commissioned The most remarkable feature of this Cranach from his own coat-of-arms. The
by the monastic order of St Anthony for deeply disturbing painting is the nearly story comes from the Greek poet Theo-
their hospital church at Isenheim, near central figure of Christ himself nailed to critus, and several lines from the poem
Colmar. The altarpiece has two themes: the cross. The placard above his head can be seen at the top of the painting; the
the narration of the stories of the bears the letters I NR I, the initials for the work of Theocritus had only recently
Annunciation, the Nativity, the Cruci- Latin Iesus Nazarenus ,
Rex Iudaeorum ,
been translated into Latin, and might not
fixion, theLamentation and the Resur- Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. have been wholly familiar to Cranachs
rection and the depiction of scenes from
;
Blood still gushes from the sword wound patrons. Cupid is stung by a bee while
the lives of the patron saints of the in his side and his head has fallen limply stealing a honeycomb, and he comes
monastery. It is made up of an elaborate on to his shoulder. His body is thin, and whiningly to complain to his mother
series of folding wings, and The distorted with the stiffness of death; the Venus, the goddess of Love. But she
Crucifixion can be seen on the outside fingers grope upwards like frozen claws. reminds him that his arrows inflict even
when all the wings are closed. Splinters and thorns pierce his skin, greater pain. To this moral tale Cranach
Griinewald has created a truly terri- evidence of the beating he received, and has added at the top of the painting a
fying painting, perhaps the most terri- his flesh has a greenish pallor, the feet sentiment of his own: So in like manner

32
the brief and fleeting pleasure which we the naked figures. Venus is a temptress, wonderfully lithe and graceful as she rests
seek injures us with sad pain. with her tilted head and seductive half- her hand on the branch above her, from
The landscape is sharply etched; the smile, her leg raised in a gesture full of which the large fruits look ready to fall.

rough bark of the tree, the dark, pointed sexual invitation. Her allure is enhanced The sexuality in every line of this slender
leaves and the stony ground provide a by the flamboyant hat and heavy necklace Venus must have been as appealing to
strong contrast with the smooth flesh of which emphasize her nakedness. She is Cranachs clients as it is today.

33
BELOW was known as II Magnifico. After the decoration (the walls already bore many
death of Lorenzo, Michelangelo went to famous paintings by fifteenth-century
Michelangelo
Bologna and then to Rome, where he first Italian artists).
Buonarroti (1475-1564) made his name with his Pietd (a sculpture The chapel is 133 feet long, 43 feet
of the Virgin with the body of Christ after wide, and 68 feet high, and it required a
The Creation of the descent from the cross) in St Peters brilliant imagination to devise a scheme in

Adam (1508-12) Cathedral. The Medici of Florence and which the whole vast ceiling was united.
the Popes of Rome - Julius II, Leo x, Paul Michelangelo achieved it through a series
The Sistine Chapel, 111 - were his patrons, and he produced of narrative paintings which tell the
The Vatican, Rome work for them that won him public stories of Genesis until the Great Flood,
acclaim and adulation. Vasari tells us and the stories of the life of Christ from
The phenomenal genius of Michelangelo simply that the work of Michelangelo the Gospel of St Matthew. He was
has been praised consistently since the transcends and eclipses that of every determined to carry out the scheme
start of his unparalleled career. He other artist, living or dead supreme not
. . . virtually on his own, and, while Julius 11
.
worked for princes and popes and was in one art alone but in all three . . agitated for its completion, Michelangelo
pre-eminent in the High Renaissance as Probably his greatest achievement, which worked for nearly four years under
an architect, a sculptor and a painter. can be seen in both sculptures and appalling difficulties, most of the time
More than anyone else, he raised the paintings, was his extraordinary ability to lying flat on his back on the scaffolding
crafts of painting and sculpture to the express all the human emotions through and unable to get a clear view of what he
status of Fine Arts. the beauty of the naked body. was doing. There are nearly 350 figures in
He was first apprenticed in the The Sistine Chapel was built in the the ceiling as a whole, in a wonderfully
Florentine workshop of Domenico Vatican by Pope Sixtus iv (hence its rich variety of poses which has been
Ghirlandaio, and shortly afterwards name); his nephew, who became Pope drawn on by artists ever since.
transferred to a school set up under the Julius 11, commissioned the ceiling fres- The Creation of Adam shows with
patronage of Lorenzo de Medici, who coes from Michelangelo to complete its extraordinary power and subtlety the
moment when the hand of God gave life to
Adam, and symbolically to the human
world. The Creators flowing mantle
encloses some eleven figures, angels or
beings that existed before man, and they
support him as he stretches out his arm to
touch the finger of Adam. Reclining in a
superbly graceful attitude, Adams per-
fect, muscular body reveals his latent
strength. The hands just touching provide
an emotional tension as well as a physical
link between God and man. The magnifi-
cent sculptural figures, dominating the
spaces around them, express in Michel-
angelos vast and dramatic conception the
full significance of the moment of
creation.
At its unveiling the ceiling of the
SistineChapel was hailed as a supreme
work of art, and it earned its artist the
name il divino Michelangelo.

RIGHT
Giorgione (c. 1477-1510)

The Tempest (c.1500)

Accademia, Venice

Giorgione, born in Castelfranco, some

twenty-five miles from Venice, is one of

Europes greatest painters, yet practically

nothing is known about him. It is thought even mythological scene in the way that shepherd passing by stops to look at them
that he worked with or was apprenticed to most paintings had done in the past. from the waters edge. The over-
Giovanni Bellini in Venice, that in Giorgione was ahead of his time in that his whelming, elemental force of Nature, and
Bellinis studio he met the young Titian, work was created to express a mood or an the part man plays in the cycle of life are
and that Titian in his turn became idea, much as modern art does today, and implied by the storm and the figures in the
Giorgiones pupil. this had a profound effect on his Ventian landscape, and evidence of mans creation
He died of the plague in his early contemporaries and the painters who of the civilized world is provided by the
thirties,and some of his paintings may followed him. buildings along the river bank. In the
have been finished by other artists after The Tempest is one of the very few distance are the dome of a church and the
his death. This has added to the con- paintings - about thirteen in all - that sunlit walls of battlemented palaces (on
siderable problem of deciding which have always unanimously been attributed the roof of one a stork or heron is outlined
works are entirely authentic and which are to Giorgione, but its subject has been against the sky). Behind the young man
not. disputed for over four centuries. X-rays are the ruins of ancient buildings over-
As a result of his remarkable and talent, have revealed that Giorgione first painted grown with trees, indicating perpetual
the fact that information about his life was another female nude where the man now change and the passing of time.
invented because so little was known, a is, which indicates that he had no Giorgione has used intense colour and
legend has grown up around him in which intention of illustrating a particular event, light to bind the composition together,
he has become a mysterious and almost but was allowing his imagination entirely and to pick out details of architecture,
mythical figure. to guide him. distant trees, the planks of the bridge, the
Portraits, religious scenes and land- The scene is lit by the strange golden shining foliage of bushes behind the two
scapes were the themes of Giorgiones light of an approaching storm, and a figures, and the beautiful naked flesh of
small oil and he was the first
paintings, streak of lightning pierces the heavy the woman and her child. And he has
artist Venice to produce work for
in thunderclouds. On a grassy bank a plump reproduced superbly in this mysterious,
collectors rather than for churches or young woman, naked but for a length of emotional landscape the eerie light of a
public buildings. Like The Tempest many ,
white cloth draped around her shoulders, summer storm, and the electric tension it

of his pictures do not represent a real or cradles a baby to her breast, and a creates in the atmosphere.

35

.. ,
,
1

;vf*j

/
i

Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1470-1523) He realized that this marked the moment shelfon the wall, arranged on a table in a
of Jeromes death, many miles away. cupboard, open on the floor, and sur-
St Augustine in his Both St Jerome and St Augustine were rounding the figure of Augustine at his
Fathers of the Church, and both were desk; statuettes and vases, candlesticks, a
Study (c.1510)
scholars. Augustine is shown here as cowrie shell, and mathematical and scien-
Scuolo di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, middle-aged, with a small dark beard, and tific devices cover every available space.
Venice wearing the robes of a bishop. His study is Action and time have been suspended,
elaborately furnished and decorated, with and even the little dog seems transfixed in
an ornamented ceiling, carved wooden wonder. Augustine himself is lost in
Vittore Carpaccio worked mainly in his cupboards, and an elegant studded leather contemplation of his vision of the death of
native Italy, and was a follower of the chair and lectern. His bishops mitre and Jerome. Carpaccios portrayal of this
great Venetian painter Bellini. pastoral staff and a golden statue of sensitive, spiritual man and of the details
Most of his work was done on com- Christ rest on a private altar in the gilded of his religious and scholarly life, is

mission for small societies. St Augustine in alcove behind him. minutely observed and sympathetic.
his Study is one of the episodes from the Augustine was enormously learned the :

lives of St George and St Jerome with vast array of books, documents and
which Carpaccio decorated the building scientific instruments in his study testify
of the Society for Dalmatian Sailors in to that, and they are depicted in fascin-
Venice. ating detail. On the floor in the right hand
According to legend, Augustine of corner is a long passage of music, a hymn
Hippo was in his study writing a letter to to St Augustine included by the artist in

his friend Jerome w hen a shaft of brilliant, reverence for the saint. There are books
unearthly streamed through the
light everywhere, most of them with coloured
window beside him and filled the room.
r
leather bindings and gold clasps, filling a

36
Raphael (Raffaello In about 1508 he was summoned to and perfect calm, although
for its serenity
Sanzio) (1483-1520) Rome by Pope Julius 11, a great patron of the cross reminder of the suffering to
is a
the arts. Raphael produced a large num- come. The figures are grouped to the left,
The Alba ber of devotional pictures and altarpieces but the Virgins arm and the billowing

Madonna for him and Pope Leo x,

for his successor material of her cloak create a restful
(i$o8-n)
and he also painted portraitsand designed balance, harmony emphasized by the
its

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC interiors for many other wealthy Romans. shape of the painting.
The Alba Madonna is so called because The Alba Madonna reveals Raphaels
So remarkable was Raphaels talent that for over one hundred years it was in the genius in the solving of a difficult prob-
he became known as the boy genius; his collection of the Spanish Dukes of Alba. lem : the convincing portrayal of three-
reputation grew rapidly, and his career The painting is a tondo , a circular format dimensional figures on a flat surface. It is

throughout his short life seems to have that was popular at the time, of the interesting to compare this picture with
been effortless. Madonna with the Christ Child on her the work of the very early masters
He was born and brought up in Urbino, lap, seated serenely in the Italian country- represented here, and to notice how
an important provincial centre of art and side. The adoring infant John the Baptist, dramatically painting had changed by the
literature in the Italian province of the clothed traditionally in animal skins, time of Raphael, particularly in the
Marches. In 1504 he moved to Florence, holds out a cross of twigs to Christ. The representation of the human figure. The
where he quickly absorbed all that the Virgin Mary wears her customary blue woman and the two young children are
Florentine masters could teach him. He cloak; the haloes are fine whisps of gold. not only three-dimensional, they are
was soon considered to be the equal of his The bright soft colours and delicate detail entirely realistic in their movements and
two greatest Renaissance contemporaries, of the draperies and hair, and the circle of in the way they express feeling in their
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, wild flowers round the feet of the three faces and This humanism
their gestures.
although they were both somewhat older figures, make an unusually light and and vitality was one of the most significant
than him, and already well established. beautiful composition. It is remarkable features of High Renaissance Italian art.

37
BELOW His work exhibits a love of the dramatic legend roses originally were white, and
and a radiant confidence and enjoyment of became red when they were stained by her
Titian (Tiziano
life. Life through coloured light is the blood. Her left hand covers her groin, in
Vecelli) (r. 1487-1576) phrase often used to describe the glitter- the traditional pose. The expression in her
ing paintings of Titian. He helped to dark almond-shaped eyes and curving lips
The Venus of establish oil-paint as a widely accepted is both provocative and knowing, as if she
Urhino (c.i 53 8) medium, and
rich
his colours are exceptionally
and glowing. He applied them in free
is confident of the power of her sexual
attraction.
The Uffizi Gallery, Florenee expansive brush strokes, sometimes using The emerald green curtain behind her
his fingers for the final touches. and its
acts as a cool dark foil to her skin,
Titian was one of the most successful and Titian painted this Venus for the Duke soft folds accentuate the voluptuous lines
productive painters in history. He lived in of Urbino, hence name. The painting is
its of her body. This deep green and the red
Venice where he was trained in the studio reminiscent pagan altarpiece: it
of a of the roses and the couch are picked up in
of Giovanni Bellini. On Bellinis death, worships female sexuality, and presents the colours of the background scene,
in 1516, Titian became official painter to the goddess of love as an earthly woman, where two maidservants are putting away
the Venetian Republic, and dominated aware of her beauty and the physical their mistresss clothes for the night.
European painting for much of the pleasures of life. The summer evening floods
light of a
sixteenth century. He worked for the The warm glow of her skin is enhanced into theroom, picking out the sheen
ducal families of Ferrara and Mantua, for by the gold and cream tints in the sheet on rich materials, the designs on the
Francis 1 of France, Philip 11 of Spain, for and pillows of her couch, by her brown elaborately decorated chests and the
the Holy Roman Emperor Charles v, and eyes, and her titian hair falling in waves tapestries on the walls. The maids, chests,
for Pope Paul ill, who made him a count on to her shoulders. (This particular tapestries, and little dog curled up asleep
palatine. From his highly organized shade of red-gold hair appeared so often on the couch, fill the painting with
studio in Venice several thousand paint- in Titians paintings that it was named interest; they also balance the long angled
ings emerged during his long and ener- after him.) A crystal earring catches the line of the naked goddess in the fore-
mainly altarpieces, portraits
getic career: light against her cheek. In her right hand ground, and provide a contrasting activity
and mythological scenes, many of the she holds some small red roses, the flowers to her languorous pose.
latter depicting the female nude. of love associated with Venus; in ancient

38
RIGHT
Hans Holbein the
Younger (1497-1543)

The Ambassadors (i 533 )

The National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein was born in the rich

commercial city of Augsburg, where his
father Hans the Elder was a well-known
painter. He trained in his fathers work-
shop and then moved to Basel, where he knowledge and understanding of the top shelf of the table show the exact time
started on his own successful career. world about them and their interest in when the portrait was supposed to have
Eventually he was to seek his fortune in science, art and religion. been completed : 10.30 on the morning of
London, and to this circumstance we owe The man on the left is an aristocrat Jean 1 1 April. Time is frozen and this illusion
;

the greatest paintings of the Tudors and de Dinteville, aged twenty-nine, the paradoxically underlines the knowledge of
their circle: Henry vmand his wives; French Ambassador in London; his time rushing on and age approaching. A
Edward vi as a child; Sir Thomas More friend and visitor is Georges de Selve, the string on the lute is broken, another
before his fall from favour; and Thomas twenty-five-year-old Bishop of Lavaur, symbol of how things end.
Cromwell. He became Henry viiis court who also undertook diplomatic duties. With great penetration Holbein has
painter, with a studio in the Old Palace of These men are in the prime of life, but painted something of the lives of these two
Whitehall. It was during his stay in Holbein is anxious to show that death is young men as well as revealing their
London, and probably shortly before he never far away, and he has included accomplishments. Several of his great
entered the kings service, that he painted several symbols of death as a reminder of group portraits have sadly been lost; but
this magnificent portrait. this. In the top left hand corner a crucifix The Ambassadors combines in the richest
The Ambassadors is one of the first full- is just visible, the tiny skeletal figure of possible measure his insight into charac-
length, life-size portraits in the North, Christ almost covered by the rich green ter, his range of intellectual interests, and
and it shows two richly dressed, dignified damask of the curtain; Jean de Dinteville his genius in portraying the world with
young men, conscious of their office, their wears on his tip-tilted hat a badge perception and accuracy.
responsibilities and their positions in life. decorated with a skull; and at the very As was typical of a hard-working artist

The robes they wear are fur-trimmed and front of the painting there is a strange of his period, Holbein turned his hand to
made of shining, elaborately decorated object, which can only be deciphered if many things besides painting; he de-
materials. Both young men are sur- the spectator moves to the right and views signed costumes, stained glass, objects in
rounded by objects - terrestrial and it from the side. It is a human skull, silver, and even themes But
for festivals.
celestial globes, mathematical instru- possibly painted in this distorted way his ability as a portrait painter brought
ments, books both religious and worldly, a because the painting was to hang on a him an international reputation, and he
lute, a piece of Turkish carpet - all of and would be seen from the side.
staircase, was certainly one of the greatest Northern
which indicate their high education, their Two mathematical instruments on the Europe has ever produced.

39
BELOW With its vibrant super-charged colour, innocent; it speaks quite openly of sexual
especially the deep hypnotic blue, it love.So scandalous did it once appear that
Bronzino (1503-72)
makes a fascinating composition. overpainting (now removed) in the shape

An Allegory (i 540S )
Its
Time and
alternative
Folly.
title

Venus
is Venus,
is the
Cupid,
central
of leaves covering Cupids buttocks, and
drapery modestly wrapped around Venus
The National Gallery, London figure, holding the golden apple awarded legswas added at some time in the past.
Judgement of Paris, when she
to her at the Behind Cupid is an anguished figure
Most of Bronzinos life was spent in was chosen as the most beautiful of all the most probably representing Jealousy, and
Florence, where he began his artistic Greek goddesses. Her hair is decorated in a ferocious, energetic old man appears in
career as student and assistant to the the Florentine style of the day; her the top right hand corner of the painting,
Florentine artist Pontormo. His flawless delicate features, long toes and tapering the whites of his eyes gleaming and his
technique has its roots in a movement fingers have all the aristocratic distinction muscles rippling. With his wings and the
known as Mannerism, a courtly, decadent of the ideal beauty of the time. hour-glass he bears upon his back, he
and contrived style of painting which Her winged and curly-haired son must represent Time. He is tearing away
followed the Italian Renaissance. Figures Cupid embraces her, and she seizes the the blue cloak held by Fraud, a mysterious
were refined into icy perfections, stylish opportunity to lift his arrow from its masked woman who faces him in the
and elegant, and set in exaggerated poses quiver. Venus is the goddess of love and opposite corner, and his outstretched arm
conveying ideas or emotions rather than a fertility, but Cupid also is a god of love, forms a vital link in the circular com-
realistic representation. and because of the mischief caused by his position. A plump, naked boy with an
All this can be found in An Allegory ,
an arrows, she sometimes punishes him by anklet of bells looks as if he is about to
elaborate, highly artificial painting whose taking them away. throw a bunch of roses to the goddess of
subject is based on ancient Greek myths. Bronzinos painting, however, is hardly love. He is thought to represent Jest or
Folly. Behind the boy is a figure with a
female head, human
arms, and a grotes-
que furred animals body ending in a long
scaly tail. She holds a honeycomb (often
associated with Cupid) and displays the
sting in her tail. She may be Pleasure both
sweet and painful.
A Mannerist painter like Bronzino
would have delighted in inventing this
complex allegory of love, with its elab-
orate tangle of mythical characters;
through them he examines the distress
caused by love, in which Time, Folly,
Jealousy and Fraud all play their parts.
The picture is dazzling in its smooth
elegance and electric colours, and in the
disturbing eroticism and corruption it

portrays.

RIGHT

Jacopo Robusti
Tintoretto (1518-94)

The Origin of the Milky

W ay (1570s)
The National Gallery, London

Jacopo Robustis nickname of Tintoretto

was derived from his fathers trade as a
dyer ( tintore ) in Venice. Tintoretto was
prolific and exceedingly successful, partly
as a result of his willingness to adapt his
style to suit his patrons, and partly
because he achieved a stunning com- mythological scenes for the Roman Juno, can be seen on the right. The naked
bination of brilliant colour and dramatic Emperor Rudolf n. Its subject is the winged boys bearing Cupids bows and
outline. conferment of immortality on the infant arrows arc messengers of love, known as
His compositions often revolve around Hercules by putting him to drink from the putti\one of them holds a net, a symbol of
a central point, with foreshortened figures breast of the goddess Juno. Juno was the deceit, for Juno was sleeping peacefully
twisting and turning in radiating diagonal wife of Jupiter, who had fathered when Jupiter surprised her by thrusting
lines to the corners of the canvas, full of Hercules with the mortal woman Alcmena his child to her breast. Jupiters sacred
movement and drama Mannerist
in the of Thebes. Hercules sucks so strongly at eagle hovers beneath his muscular figure,
style. He had a very individual working his foster-mothers breast that her milk holding in its claws the dramatic emblem
method: he made wax models for the spurts into the sky, where its droplets of a thunderbolt.
figures in his paintings, and arranged form the Milky Way; and the milk that A flickering light picks out the colours
them under lamps or candles to study falls to earth is transformed into lilies. and textures of drapery and flesh, high-
lighting effects, with the result that the (Surviving drawings and prints indicate lighting Junos breasts and thighs, and
light and shade in his pictures is extremely that this scene may have been
entire shadows accentuate the twisting move-
realistic, and it plays an important part in shown and that a lower portion
originally, ment of the figures. The originality of this
his work. of the painting was removed and is now work, with its dramatic structure based on
The Origin of the Milky Way may have lost.) a central axis, is typical of Tintorettos
been produced as one of a series of Peacocks, traditionally associated with highly decorative and elaborate style.

4i
BELOW The story behind the picture is un- with gold decoration, and the pictures and
known, and the identity of the central furnishings of the rooms, all painted with
Francois Clouet (before 1510-72)
woman has been the subject of much wonderful smoothness and clarity.
discussion. Most people now believe her The womans features are idealized,
Lady Bathing with
to be Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri and her high forehead, arched brows, long
Children and n, although this has still not been proved. straight nose and small carved mouth, as
Other suggestions have been Marie well as her surroundings, indicate her
Attendants (c. i 57 i)
Touchet, mistress of Charles ix, Gabrielle high birth. The other figures are entirely
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC dEstrees, mistress of Henry iv, and even human and realistic: a small boy, his rich
Mary Stuart. There are details in the clothes probably indicating that he is her
painting too which are hard to interpret son, reaches greedily towards the bowl of
Francois Clouet, son and grandson of now, although no doubt they were clear to fruit; to the left a wet-nurse suckles a
was court painter to Francis I,
artists, its aristocratic sixteenth-century audi- baby at her breast; and, in the room
Henri 11 and Charles ix of France, yet ence. The pink carnation the woman beyond, a maid is bringing another
only three signed pictures are known to be holds in her hand, and the unicorn on the pitcher of water for the bath, hot from the
entirely his. In part the problem of embroidered screen in the background, fire.

distinguishing his work from that of other would have had a meaning in the French The rich red satin curtain, which
artists is due to his success. Not only did court which is unfortunately lost to us frames the composition and increases its

he have a large studio of assistants, but he today. A unicorn is a symbol of purity and depth, seems as if it has been drawn aside
was also widely imitated. There is no chastity, and the carnation indicates a to reveal a private scene, full of signifi-
doubt, however, that this painting was by betrothal yet it seems the woman may be
;
cance in the intrigues of the French court,
Clouet; the woman has drawn back her a mistress, not an intended wife. and communicating an atmosphere of
bath-sheet and reveals his name inscribed An opulent style of living is indicated intimacy and comfort beyond the moment
on the side of the bath. by the womans jewels, the silver bowl it portrays.

RIGHT
Pieter Bruegel, the
Elder (1525/30-69)

The Return of the

Hunters (i 5 65 )
The Museum of Art History, Vienna

Pieter Bruegel was born in Antwerp and

spent most of his life there, with a two-
year trip to Europe from 1552-4. He went
over the Alps to Italy, travelling as far
south as Sicily, and the scenery of the Alps
had a marked effect on his landscapes.
He depicted man in natural surround-
ings, leading a simple life, and dependent
on the earth and the seasons for survival.
He earned the nickname Peasant
Bruegel, not because he was uncultivated
which was far from being the case, but
because the lives of the Flemish peasants
formed such a large part of his subject
matter. He showed them working, feast-
ing and celebrating, and exposed their their shoulders bent and their legs heavy, ridge an old woman trudges across a
drunkenness, lechery and greed with a after a hard days hunting with their bridge with a load of twigs on her back for
gently wit. But a religious
sarcastic hounds. The line of trees down the a fire, and a woman in a red skirt is pulled
and understanding of happiness
sincerity hillside emphasizes the steady tramp of over the ice on a sledge.
and suffering were as evident in his their footsteps descending to the village. The roofs of the houses are long and
pictures as his eye for human weakness. They pass an inn on the ridge where a steep to shed the heavy snow, and icicles
He was interested in the peasants cus- group of people are roasting a pig over a hang from the eaves. The bare branches of
toms and in every aspect of their daily blazing fire; and beyond it the roofs of the trees are like the delicate bones of a
lives, and his paintings tell us a great deal houses follow the line of the ridge down to skeleton, and the snow on them reflects

about them. the valley. the icy eerie light.

The Return of the Hunters , also known A horse-drawn wagon trundles along a There is so much detail in the picture
as [Vinter is one of a series of landscapes
,
road bordered by feathery trees and ;
that one could look into it for hours in
representing the seasons of the year. Like fields, copses and four churches are fascination, and its minute observations
the others in the cycle, it has a high scattered over the flat landscape as far as reveal Bruegels familiarity with the
vantage point in the foreground and a long the eye can see, with mountains like alpine countryside and the lives of the people.
vista receding into the distance. It com- crags towering over them.
bines elements of the alpine scenery that A river winds its way through the
Bruegel saw on his travels with the valley, with a bridge crossing it in the
countryside, houses and people of the middle distance. It has flooded several of
Low Countries where he lived. the surrounding fields, and the water has
It is a snow scene, but the signs of frozen into hard green ice. The villagers
companionship and domestic comfort are taking advantage of it, skating or
give it a feeling of warmth. Three men are playing games on the newly-formed
plodding back wearily through the snow, frozen lakes. Just below the foreground

43
 )

Paolo Veronese (1528-88) soldiers and drunks, all gathered in settings

of architectural splendour, rich tableaux
The Marriage Feast at in which fact and fantasy are merged.
This work was produced for the
Cana ( 1562-3
refectory of the convent of San Giorgio
The Louvre, Paris Maggiore, and it depicts Christs first
recorded miracle, when, at the wedding
Born in Verona, Paolo Caliari was called feast at Cana, he turned water into wine.
Veronese after his native town; but he The huge stone drinking jars can be seen
moved to Venice in 1553, and his work is in the foreground of the painting.
closely associated with the Venetian The only full face portrait is that of
school. His greatest contribution was the Christ himself, seated under the balus-
creation of decorative schemes and paint- trade with the Virgin next to him; their
ings which reflected the rich pageantry expressions are tranquil and calm in the
and splendour of Venetian ceremony. extravagant turmoil around them.
For the last thirty years of his life Musicians in the foreground (with two
Veronese was, with Tintoretto, the lead- elegant dogs) add to the mood of bois-
ing painter in Venice. His gigantic terous indulgence; one of them - dressed
works, some of them as much as thirty feet robe - is thought to be Veronese.
in a silver

across, were carried out in a well- The composition is symmetrically

organized workshop with the assistance of balanced, with depth created by the
his brother and several of his sons. classical colonnades at either side and the
He specialized in biblical and historical belltower in the distance. In the clear
subjects, and filled them with vast crowds shadowless daylight, the teeming activity
of people of all sorts: aristocrats and of the brilliantly choreographed crowd
peasants, fashionably dressed women and ( 1 32 figures in all) fills the vast canvas with
freakish buffoons, courtiers, musicians, life and energy.

44
El Greco (1541-1614) taking part in a fervent religious revival, two groups are further defined by the
and El Greco painted mainly for churches small reliefs on the wall. Behind the
Christ Driving the and buildings belonging to religious Pharisees is the sacrifice of Isaac, a symbol
orders. in the Old Testament of purification and
Traders from the Christ Driving the Traders from the redemption, and behind the traders is the
Temple (c. 1600) Temple is a subject he painted many times. expulsion of Adam and Eve from the
The energetic and graceful movement of Garden of Eden.
The National Gallery, London Christs right arm, and the angle of his The paint is almost slapped on to the
elbow he raises his whip, are pivotal
as canvas, making strong, rough textures.
El Greco, the Greek, was the name given parts of the entire composition. They are The strident, acid colours, the streaks of
by the Spanish to Domenicos Theoto- echoed in the bent arm of the man to the white emphasizing the elongated limbs,
copoulos, who was born in Crete but left, and both he and the man stretching the nervous tension and dynamism of the
spent most of his working life in Toledo. upwards repeat the angle of Christs strange distorted figures, all express El
He was Baroque painter, but he was
a twisting central figure. A piece of up- Grecos personal and passionate Christian
influenced by both the Mannerist and the turned furniture, possibly a traders beliefs.
Renaissance masters. His style is very stand, testifies to the vigour with which
individual and easily recognizable: elon- the merchants are being urged to leave.
gated figures, harsh surprising colours in The two crowds of people are sharply
brilliant contrasts, and an abundant use of separated on the
: are the traders, and
left

white. on the right a group of elderly bearded

The patrons for whom he worked were Pharisees, talking among themselves. The
Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619)

Portrait of an Unknown
Man (c. 1588)

The Victoria and Albert Museum,

London

Holbein was the chronicler of life at the

court of Henry vm, but it is to Hilliard
that we owe our conception not only of
Queen Elizabeth herself, but also of the
delicacy, courtly grace and melancholy
lyricism of the Elizabethan Age.
Hilliard was the son of a goldsmith, a
respectable public figure in the English
West Country town of Exeter, and he
trained and worked for a while as a
goldsmith himself. He was educated in
the household of John Bodley of Exeter,
and then in Geneva. In 1562 he was
apprenticed to the Queens goldsmith and
jeweller Robert Brandon, whose daughter
he married. From the start of his career
Hilliard had practised as a limner (a

painter of portraits in miniature) and, until

overtaken by his own pupil Isaac Oliver,
he was the most successful limner in
England. When Hilliard was fifty, the
great poet John Donne remarked of his
art,

. . a hand or eye
By Hilliard drawn, is worth a history
.
By a worse painter made . .

Miniatures were portable tokens of love

and admiration, and they were usually
mounted in lockets or worn at the end of
jewelled chains. The unknown man in this
portrait may have commissioned the
miniature as a love token in a difficult

courtship ;
the inscription in Latin which
encircles his head translates as, My
praised faith causes my sufferings,
which
suggests perhaps that his love was un-
requited. He leans in languid melancholy
against a tree trunk, with his right hand
over his heart and an elegant cloak
hanging from his shoulder. In Eliza-
bethan times the beauty and the pain of
love were symbolized by the flowers and
thorns of the rose, and here they weave a
delicate tracery on his cloak.
The of the limner was essentially
art
precise and intricate, with fine brushwork
and an eye for detail. Hilliard combined
these qualities with great imagination and
sensitivity to produce the jewel-like
perfection of this miniature, which evokes
the poignancy of love in a highly romantic
composition.
Michelangelo Merisi da When he died at the age of thirty-seven he self-portrait; and the young god in his
Caravaggio (1573-1610) was generally recognized as one of the crown of grapes and vine leaves certainly
most exciting painters and innovators of has some of the artists passion and vitality
Bacchus (c.i^gj) the Baroque age. in his gaze. Although his pose is indolent
In particular his use of chiaroscuro and relaxed he has an air of repressed
The Uffizi Gallery, Florence (strong light contrasted with deep shad- energy.
ow) and dramatic foreshortening are the His foreshortened arm is thrust for-
Caravaggio was a stormy and excitable characteristics of his work for which he is ward so that it breaks the flat surface of the
man, and his tempestuous life was sur- best known. His technical methods were painting and draws us in towards him. It

rounded by controversy. He stabbed a unusual for the sixteenth century: he is a powerful pose, and its directness is

man to death after a violent quarrel in
Rome, was imprisoned, but escaped and
fled to Sicily. From there he was pursued
to Naples and nearly murdered in a
with a group of cut-throat mercenaries.
The and sensational quality of his
vivid
temperament is reflected in his art. People
were shocked by his work, but it was
widely admired and extremely influential.
painted directly on to canvas instead of very arresting. A strong light silhouettes
working from sketches and squared-up his figure against the dark background,
drawings in the accepted fashion, and this and this chiaroscuro device heightens the
brawl gave his style a remarkable zest. effect of his gesture. The bowl of fruit and
Bacchus was the god of wine and carafe of wine underline his sensuality and
fertility, and he was a common subject in the moodof indulgence. Bacchus is a
paintings of the period. This portrayal of superb example of the effects of lighting,
him, executed when Caravaggio was foreshortening and vivid realism achieved
barely twenty years old, may well be a by Caravaggio.

47
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) with the help of assistants (the young van hat and the robe of St John reinforce the
Dyck among them), countless portraits, red of Christs blood.The flesh tones and
The Descent from landscapes, mythological scenes with the dazzling white shroud, which accentu-
voluptuous nudes, religious pictures and ates the structure of the composition,
the Cross ( 1611-12)
altarpieces. provide the main sources of light.
Antwerp Cathedral This major work formed the central The Descent from the Cross is a supreme
The Prince of Painters was the name panel - some fourteen feet wide and ten work of art, showing the vision and
given to the Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul feet high - of an altarpiece for Antwerp dynamism of Rubenss imagination. It

Rubens. He was the son of a high-ranking Cathedral. It depicts the descent from the captures the attention of worshippers in
official in the Flemish government, and cross, and shows Christs pale body being the Cathedral now as it did three centuries
combined an astonishingly successful gently lowered into the arms of St John ago, and magnificently fulfils the purpose
artistic career with missions of diplomacy the Evangelist. The Virgin, in a billowing for which it was intended - to encourage
for the Governors of the Netherlands. He blue robe, reaches up to him, and Mary the faithful.
was well-educated, good-looking, charm- Magdalene supports his feet. On the left The side panels of the altarpiece depict,
ed everyone he met with his courteous the bearded Joseph of Arimathea anx- on the left, the Virgins visit to her cousin
manners, and spoke several languages. He iously clasps the white shroud in which Elizabeth to celebrate their pregnancies,
visited many European countries in- the body will be wrapped in the tomb, and and, on the right, the presentation of Jesus
cluding Italy, where he studied the High Nicodemus descends the ladder on the at theTemple of Jerusalem.
Renaissance masters - Titian and Michel- right. The nine figures are arranged in Rubens was an exceptionally talented,
angelo in particular. He was also deeply such a way that they form a single energetic and prolific painter, a favourite
influenced by the work of Caravaggio. diagonal line, with Christ at the centre of at the court of Philip 1 v of Spain, knighted
His paintings were executed with great the group. This device effectively and by Charles 1 of England, and court painter
confidence and control in rich and in- dramatically focuses attention on the main first to the Duke of Mantua in Italy, and

toxicating colour, which is one of the most subject, and at the same time expresses later to the Spanish rulers of the Nether-
important features of his work. His rapid the concern and protective care felt by lands in his native Antwerp. He held this
preparatory sketches in oils show the and family.
Christs friends appointment until his death, and became
freedom and verve of his style. Com- The harmonized colours glow
perfectly the most important Baroque artist in
missions poured in, and he produced, against an ominously dark sky. Josephs Northern Europe.

48
The Descent from the Cross which forms the central panel of the Antwerp Cathedral altarpiece
,
 )

BELOW RIGHT
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)

A Dance to the Music of

Time ( c.i6jy-g

The Wallace Collection, London

The greatest of French seventeenth-

century painters was Nicolas Poussin. He
amplified and passed on the classical
artistic tradition, frequently using the
themes of Greek myth and legend as his
subjects. He believed that painting should
appeal more to the mind than the eye. He
was a painter of ideas, an artist who
praised the rational rather than the
intuitive, who sought to impose order
rather than reflect chaos. To this end,
form and composition are paramount,

ABOVE times old age or emotional uncertainty confidence and even shrewd calculation;
with an unerring hand. he looks as though he is weighing up the
Frans Hals (c. 1580-1666)
Many people most admire his vivid situation,and is also in control of it. He is
group portraits, but one painting above all a young man on his way - the world
The Laughing has captured the public imagination -The belongs to the Laughing Cavalier. It is

Cavalier (1624) Laughing Cavalier. easy to see why the Victorians found his
The name of the young man is un- air of prosperity and boldness so appeal-
The Wallace Collection, London known, but he was clearly aristocratic his : ing. The impression of ease and even
clothes are made of the finest materials suppressed gaiety which this masterly
Almost exclusively Frans Hals was a and richly embroidered (some of the portrait conveys, combined with the sheer
painter of portraits. He introduced an air emblems on his coat and sleeves may be skill of the artist in conveying the textures
of informality and naturalness into his clues to his identity). Everything about and colours of skin, hair and clothing,
pictures of the affluent society of Holland. him contributes to his air of assurance his : stands out as a triumph of virtuosity.
He painted people as they were, ac- vigorous upswept moustache, prominent
curately revealing their well-being and stomach, curling hair, and his hand
prosperity, and even their satisfaction - resting confidently on his hip.
the militia after they had all settled down In spite of the paintings title, the
to agood meal, for example. young man does not appear to be really
He had a rapid technique and a laughing, although a century ago it was
perceptive eye, and could catch a fleeting thought that his eyes were alight with
expression with a few confident strokes. amusement. Today, his half-smile is

Yet he was always analytical, recording at generally interpreted as one of determined

50
emotion subordinate. His paintings are Pleasure, but barely touches the hand of Leading the way is Aurora, goddess of the
smooth, highly finished and controlled; Poverty. The man with his back towards Dawn and sister to the Sun God, scatter-
and this very discipline led paradoxically us is crowned with laurel, the victors ing flowers as she banishes Night.
to a kind of visual poetry. wreath; perhaps he is Fame. The circular form of the dance itself
Poussin spent most of his life in Rome, At Times feet a cherubic naked boy implies a never-ending cycle, echoed by
and A Dance to the Music of Time was sits contemplating the sand running Apollos journey through the air as the
painted for Cardinal Giulio Rospighosi, through an hour-glass; balancing him on sun crosses the sky. It is a powerful
later Pope Clement ix. Its composition is the left another boy blows soap bubbles. allegory of the ceaseless ebb and flow of
thought to be of the Cardinals own Both infants represent change and fragi- human history, in which the dancers
devising. In an idealized landscape re- lity: what could be shorter-lived than a represent the quality of human life, and
miniscent of the country around Rome, soap bubble, what more evocative of time the rise and fall of fortune is in the hands
four large - indeed hefty - figures form a running out than an hour-glass? The of Time.
circle. They are dancing in a rather stone column on the left bears the double
lumbering manner, and looking towards head of youth and age.
the bearded, winged figure of Time, an This splendid earthbound scene is
old but muscular man playing his lyre. crowned by a fabulous group in the sky.
The dancing figures probably represent Borne upon sunlit grey clouds, Apollo the
Pleasure (garlanded with roses), Wealth Sun God rides in his golden chariot,
(with pearls entwined in her hair) and drawn by four powerful horses. He is

Poverty (wearing a simple white linen escorted by dancing maidens representing

headdress). Wealth holds hands with the Hours, or maybe the Seasons.
BELOW portrait painter, and returned to Antwerp and distinction. He is proud and
in 1625. By 1632 he was again in London, commanding, but not arrogant, and his
Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
where he was given a studio in Blackfriars, face expresses intelligence and sensitivity.
a position as principalle paynter to His clothes are stylish, but, apart from his
Charles I with an Equerry
Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and regal garter, he is not richly dressed. He is
and Page (1635) a knighthood. portrayed, in a moment of relaxation, as a
Although van Dyck had a wide range of gentleman rather than as a king.
The Louvre, Paris
subjects - landscapes and mythological Van Dyck preferred the informality of
scenes among them - he is known chiefly situations such as this to the stiffness of
Anthony van Dyck was born to a mer- for his portraits. He painted Charles I, his state occasions, where character and
chant of Antwerp, and at the age of ten his family and his court, many and
times, individuality were often overshadowed.
formal art training began. While still in these portraits are highly accomplished His ability to penetrate and expose the
his teens, he became one of Rubenss chief and fascinating historically.
artistically personality of his sitter sympathetically as
assistants and quickly began to make a They are sensitive and elegant, and well as skilfully made him one of the
name for himself. revealing both of the sitters personality greatest of royal portrait painters. The
His ability was recognized by a major and appearance and of life at court. unusual gentleness, charm and in-
English connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel, Among his most famous pictures are formality which characterizes his work
and in 1620 van Dyck made a brief visit to his equestrian portraits of Charles 1. Here was to lead to the great tradition of
London, to the court of James 1. For the king stands with his hand on his hip as English portrait painting continued by
seven years he travelled around the cities an equerry and page prepare his horse for Reynolds and Gainsborough in the
of Italy, established his reputation as a a days hunting. His pose is one of grace eighteenth century.

RIGHT

Diego Velazquez (1599-1660)

Las Meninas (1656)

The Prado, Madrid

Diego Velazquez was born of Portuguese

parents in the Spanish town of Seville. He
trained in the academy of Francisco
Pacheco, whose daughter he married, and
by 1617 he had set up as an independent
master. At the age of twenty-four he
became court painter to Philip iv in

Madrid, a position he held for the rest of

his career. He was twice released for visits
to the artistic centres of Italy (a necessary
pilgrimage for any painter), which re-
sulted most notably in a remarkable
portrait of Pope Innocent x. Most of his
work was bound by his court appoint-
ment, and his paintings of the Spanish
royal family and the life of the court reveal
an insight into human relationships that
communicates beyond their own time and
culture.
Las Meninas (the title is Portuguese and
means Maids of Honour) was painted
towards the end of his life. Its audience
would have been the royal family, their
courtiers and servants. Ingeniously
 mm

Velazquez has included in the com- Behind them, in a nuns cowl, is the The paint has been applied thinly with
position a large portrait of the king and Infantas duenna (or chaperone) talking to rapid brushstrokes, yet the result is

queen on which he is working, which is a male attendant, and on a stairway at the detailedand accurate: there is a silky
reflected in a mirror at the back of the back the superintendent of the old palace bloom on the young girls skin, and the
room. This device may have been based pauses to look through the open door. He artisthas caught exactly the way the light
on the reflection used by van Eyck in The is outlined against the brightly lit wall at gleams softly on their hair and their
Arnolfim Marriage (see p. 14), which was the top of the stairs. In the room the crinolines, and on the thick close fur of the
then in the Spanish Royal Collection. shutters are closed against the brilliant dog.
Standing beside the painter, and no sun, and the daylight falling on the figures Hands and facial features are so
doubt talking to the royal couple who are in the foreground fades very gradually finely observed and portrayed that they
posing for him, is the Infanta Margarita into shadow at the back, deepened by the reveal the relationship within the group
Teresa, their flaxen-haired five-year-old greys and ochres of the pictures, ceiling superbly. In this work Velazquez
daughter. She is surrounded by a retinue and walls. The colours throughout the achieved perhaps his greatest heights in
of maids of honour and dwarfs, playmates painting are limited to subtle, closely combining realism, atmosphere and in-
for the royal children, who provided related tones, and they merge together in sight into character.
Velazquez with unusual character studies. the silvery light.

53
BELOW celebrations of the good life. Hundreds of Rembrandt produced a long series of
artists were drawn to its cities and made self-portraits, which reveal every stage of
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69)
good livings. his life and career in an ever-deepening
In 1632 Rembrandt set up in Amster- analysis. One of his first recorded paint-
Portrait of the
dam as a portrait painter, and made his ings contains a portrait of himself, and
Artist (c.1665) name with a group portrait of the something like a hundred self-portraits,
Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. He soon both drawings and paintings, have sur-
The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London acquired scores of pupils and followers (at vived. As a result of living well beyond his
least fifty pupils are known by name). means, he was bankrupted in 1656, but he
Rembrandt ranks with the greatest artists Once established, he refused to specialize, kept a mirror from the creditors so that he
of all time, outstandingly gifted as a and his subject matter is immensely could continue to paint himself. In some
painter, draughtsman and a print-
a varied. But he never strayed farfrom his of the portraits he appears with a con-
maker. He was born in Leyden, Holland, central concern : human beings, their fident air in fancy dress, acting the part of
the son of a miller, and trained in spiritual aspirations and worldly realities. a swaggering young man, a romantic, or a
Amsterdam. Holland at the time of He produced no sea paintings, but there man of substance and responsibility. But
Rembrandt had recently emerged from are landscapes, group portraits, religious, later in his life he reveals increasingly his
the yoke of Spanish occupation, and the mythological and still life pictures, scenes disillusionment, suffering, doubts and
Golden Age of Dutch painting reflected of contemporary life and domestic scenes. need for reassurance. Taken together, the
this new-found freedom. It had become a He exploited to the full the effects of self-portraits are the finest, broadest and
major sea-power and its people were chiaroscuro , and has been called the most most moving visual autobiography ever
commercially successful and eager for dramatic painter in history. created.
This one was painted near the end of
his life, and is probably the most famous.

He is in working clothes, with a white

cloth round his head, and a thick warm
coat to keep the cold at bay in the studio.
The sombre colours show the typical
Rembrandt palette of browns and black,
contrasted with flesh tones and touches of
white.
He holds his palette, a handful of
brushes and a maulstick, a rigid slender
rod used by painters to keep hand and
brush steady when carrying out detailed
work. The slant of the shoulders and
spreading arms creates a wide pyramid
shape, which gives the figure a solid, rock-
like quality. The face is heavily furrowed,

the skin pouchy, and the bulbous nose is

shown with no attempt at disguising its
prominence. The expression in the mouth
and eyes shows a lifetimes experience. It
is a remarkably self-penetrating study

which reveals his sensitivity and imagin-

ation as a man and as an artist.
Through capturing an outward ap-
pearance accurately and completely,
Rembrandt exposes the inner landscape of
the human character, and it is this
understanding of humanity and his skill in

portraying it that sets his art so high.

54
ABOVE great feeling of intimacy. Everything is the movement of her head. She is very
bathed with light, for the play of light on young and seems a little shy and un-
Johannes Vermeer (1632-75)
domestic objects and furnishings, and certain, yet her gaze is cool and steady.
above all on people, fascinated Vermeer. Her wide dark eyes with their opalescent
Head of a Givi (c.i66$)
He used it to brilliant effect in bringing whites, her slightly parted lips, and her
The Mauritshaus, The Hague out the depth and clarity of his colours. creamy skin reflect the strong light
Whereas other masters concentrated on shining on her face. A large pearl gleams
On the basis of some thirty-six small official portraits, still life and scenes from in her ear, a device often used by Vermeer
surviving pictures, Vermeer is now stories, Vermeer became one of the in his portraits of women as an additional
thought to be one of the greatest painters worlds greatest painters of women. He source of light, and her white collar
Northern Europe has ever produced. He captured them at private moments, writ- heightens its effect.

lived during the Golden Age of Dutch ing letters or poised to play a musical
painting, perhaps the most productive instrument, though they were un-
as
period of painting there has ever been, yet observed, and showed their strength and
on the evidence available he seems to have vulnerability, straightforwardness and
worked slowly, produced little, and not mystery.
achieved spectacular fame in his lifetime. The identity of Vermeers
He was almost entirely overlooked until uncertain, but he did have eleven child-
the 1 860s, when his work was studied by ren, and it is thought that this
French critic and art historian Theophile of his daughters. Her turban
Thore, who realized its genius. of the Turkish-style costumes, probably
Vermeer was born in Delft and spent dressing-up clothes, which were
his life there. In the tradition of Dutch the effects left by Vermeer on
painting,most of his small pictures are The girl is painted in an unusual and
concerned with domestic interiors, in arresting pose, as if she has turned to look
which everyday life is portrayed with a at a companion, and the artist
She wears a beautiful turban of blue
and gold, and the ends of it hang down her
back and balance the upward tilt of her
head. The extraordinarily luminous col-
ours of the turban and the girls pale skin
models is are accentuated by the deep shadow of the
background, which seems to recede and
may be one throw them into relief in an almost
may be part mesmerizing way.
Vermeer was one of the greatest
among masters of light and colour there has ever
his death. been, and his small calm paintings shine
with a wonderful intensity.
has caught

55
 Pieter de Hooch (1629-84) of Vermeer - people playing cards or visit the outdoor larder. The light in the
engaged in household tasks - often in a courtyard is even and bright, and the
The Courtyard of a House dimly-lit room with sunlight flooding shadowy hall opens on to bright sunlight
through an open door at the back. beyond, so that the figures are silhouetted
in Delft (1658)
Here he has painted a private court- against contrasting light and shade. The

The National Gallery, London yard, where a woman, most probably the mellow bricks, the red skirt of the woman
maid of the house, holds a small girl by the in the hall and the open shutter, fill the
hand, and looks down at her with gentle painting with warmth, and light green
In The Courtyard of a House in Delft the affection. In the open hallway another leavesadd a delicate haze of pale colour at
mood is quiet and calm and the scale small woman stands with her back to us. each side.On the courtyard wall, under-
and intimate, as is characteristic of Pieter The small enclosures give a sense of neath an oval window, an engraved stone
de Hoochs best work. He was a master of comfort and peace; and the open doors tablet tells us This is Saint Jeromes Vale.

the Dutch school, famous for his paint- and shutters make the scene airy rather Enter if you wish to repair to patience and
ings of domestic interiors lit by natural than claustrophobic. The woman and meekness. For we must first descend if we
light. His subjects were similar to those child have probably come out together to wish to be raised.

mmm
 Every detail of the courtyard is ren- Meyndert Hobbema (163&-1709) agriculture. The avenue of young poplar
dered with meticulous care: textures of trees and the road they border are
clothing, brickwork, stone, metal, wood The Avenue , extremely foreshortened, enticing us into
and human made almost magi-
flesh are the picture; and the canals and the deep
The wooden bucket and the
Middelharnis (1689)
cally real. ruts in the surface of the road also draw
broom of twigs indicate domestic duties in The National Gallery, London the eye irresistibly inwards. A man and his
a well-ordered day, and everything looks dog walk towards us, and in the distance
fresh and clean. The painting is in praise aremore people and the masts of boats on
of domestic virtue and family feeling. The Avenue is one of the most hauntingly the horizon. The poplars rise into the sky
This impression seems simple and memorable landscapes of European art. forming a sharp V-shape against the
straightforward, but it is achieved in quite Distant buildings punctuating the sky at clouds, which is repeated on the ground
a complicated way: the open doors and the horizon, avenues of trees, and a road by their receding trunks along the road-
shutters and the storage container and or path cutting through the picture are side.
wooden beams provide a number of sharp devices often used in landscape com- The image of apath or road, prominent
angles; the bricks form a complex linear position, but here Hobbema has welded in poetry and dreams as well as in
pattern; and the steps and different levels them together in a painting that is far painting, is a beguiling one, and here the
accentuate the receding planes of the greater than the sum of its parts. avenue, as it opens wide towards us, has
composition as well as the attention to Middelharnis, the village on the hor- an almost hypnotic attraction.
detail which creates an atmosphere of izon, is in South Holland on the mouth of Hobbemas work was very highly
domestic privacy and contentment. the River Maas. The
scene has changed sought after by English collectors of the
little hundred years, and
in the last three eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and
the view he made famous is still recogniz- it had a profound effect on English
able today. The flat Dutch landscape landscape painting. The finest collection
speaks of prudence and careful culti- of his pictures is in Londons National
vation, the canals and fields of ordered Gallery.
BELOW It began
France after the death of Louis
in the sea. In Watteaus painting the statue
xiv inand spread to Southern
1715, of Venus is garlanded with flowers, and
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
Germany and Austria in the next forty the shell motif on the golden barge is

years. another reminder of her birth. Little

The Embarkation for He disliked working for patrons on winged putti , symbols of love, drift over
Cythera (i 7 i 7 ) commission, and most of his pictures the sea. Peasants, villagers and courtiers
seem to have been created at his own are wending their way down to the waters
The Louvre, Paris
whim, and paid for by clients in advance edge to board the barge, and others on the
or bought by art dealers. Even the subject bank are rising to join them. In the centre
Watteau was born in Valenciennes, a town of this painting, The Embarkation for a woman looks back with a tender smile,
near the Flemish border which had Cythera, which he was asked to create for and her elegant, amorous cavalier, his arm
recently become French. From a very his formal admission to the French Royal about her waist, gently urges her to join
early age he was passionate in his love of Academy, was left to his discretion, the procession.
drawing and studied art in his native instead of being stipulated as was gen- The hazy landscape is idyllic in the
town. In about 1702 he moved to Paris, erally the case. As Watteau was
a result, evening sun, and filled with an atmos-
where he earned a meagre living as a hack able to add a new classification to French phere of love and flirtation. We cannot be
painter, and a few years later went to work art : the fete galante ,
pictures which, like sure if the couples are embarking on the
for Claude Audran, the curator of the Giorgiones, take a mood as their subject. journey to Cythera, or if the mood is one
Luxembourg Palace; through him and It was a romantic mood in which the of sweet regret that the day on the island
subsequent connoisseurs and collectors he pleasures of the senses and the fulfilment of love is over and they must return; but
had access to some of the work of Rubens, of the emotions were pursued with a this exquisite painting has an atmosphere
for whom he developed an enormous gentle ardour in idealized country of wistful melancholy, implying the
admiration, although his own style was settings. transitory nature of happiness and life
always more introverted and poignant It is thought that The Embarkation for itself. It reflects the restlessness of

than that of the energetic Rubens. Cythera was inspired by a play in which Watteaus temperament and his strivings
Watteaus paintings have all the deli- two lovers make a pilgrimage to the island after perfection; and it is one of the most

cacy and prettiness of the Rococo of Cythera off the coast of Southern haunting and delicate examples of French
movement of the early eighteenth cen- Greece, the island which Venus may have eighteenth-century art.

tury, which followed the age of Baroque. reached at the moment of her birth from
RIGHT
Giovanni Battista
Tiepolo (1696-1770)

Detail from Kaisersaal ,

Episcopal Palace ,

Wurzburg (i 75 i-4 )

Tiepolo was probably the greatest genius

of eighteenth-century Venetian painting.
He studied art in Venice, a city with an
immense artistic inheritance, and earned
his fame as a painter of vast frescoes in the
highly decorative Rococo style of which
he was the finest Italian exponent. Rococo
took the art of decoration to its furthest
point in the architecture and paintings
of southern Germany and Austria in
the mid-eighteenth century. Churches,
palaces and villas were being filled with
gilded scrollwork and a riot of pastel-
coloured ornament, and Tiepolos fres-
coes were in constant demand.
In 1750 he was invited to Germany to
produce frescoes for the Residenz of the
ruling prince-bishop at Wurzburg. This and often expressed enormous concepts. through the air on clouds of gorgeous
huge episcopal palace had taken six reigns Crowning the huge staircase is a female draperies. Some, high on the walls, are
to complete, and its architecture is the figure representing the continent of brilliantly foreshortened in scenes painted
height of German Rococo. Tiepolo was Europe, surrounded by representatives of in such steep perspective that the im-
commissioned to decorate the superb Church and State, to whom the Arts are mense space is exaggerated, and the effect
ceremonial staircase and the Imperial paying homage. quite dizzying from below.
Salon, known as the Kaisersaal, a vast In the Kaisersaal, illustrated here, the Tiepolo completed the massive task in
octagonal room two stories high. In the on episodes
subjects are largely based three years, with the help of his two sons
course of his career, Tiepolos colours had from the history of Germany, and of and a number of assistants. These
become increasingly light and airy, and Wurzburg in particular. They include magnificent decorations are a reminder
his use of perspective and space more scenes from the life of the twelfth-century that most art of the past was produced for
adventurous and dramatic, and these two Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; the a specific purpose, and intended to be seen
enormous central areas of the palace are conferment of the dukedom of Franconia in a particular context. They are the
among his most delightful and accom- on the Bishop of Wurzburg by Barbarossa perfectcomplement to the architecture of
plished flights of fancy. He created an in 1168; Apollo conducting Beatrice of one of the most splendid palaces in
unreal theatrical world, full of gaiety and Burgundy to Barbarossa; and the mar- Europe, and probably the greatest
enchantment, with great imagination and riage of Barbarossa and Beatrice. The achievement even of Tiepolos impressive
style. His subjects were mainly allegorical, figures cluster in corners and float career.

59
BELOW was a master of perspective and com- As an aid to accuracy he sometimes used
position, and had an amazing talent for the camera obscura a sixteenth-century
Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768) ,

depicting city scenes with life and ac- invention which reflected a view seen
curacy. The beauty and the art of Venice through its lens on to paper by means of a
The Harbour of
were attracting more and more visitors, series of mirrors.
San Marco with particularly from Britain, and it was Canaletto explored every corner of
rapidly becoming a centre of the Euro- Venice, and no other painter succeeded so
theCustoms House from pean art market. The wealthy upper superbly in portraying its ceremonies and
La Giudecca (c. 1726) classes, travelling before the invention of the scenes of its daily life.

the modern camera or the picture post- This typical scene shows the harbour of
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
card, delightedly snapped up Canalettos San Marco from the island of La
paintings to remind them of the unique Giudecca. On the left, on a promontory
In his youth the Venetian artist Canaletto and beautiful city, and he found that he jutting into the water, is the Customs
worked in Venice and Rome with his could sell his work as fast as he could House; on the far side of the canal, in the
father as a theatrical scene-painter. He produce it. centre of the view, is the bell tower in the
became known as a vedutista, a painter of His early paintings in particular have a Piazza San Marco, with the cathedral
views, mainly of the canals and magnifi- spontaneous freedom, while his later work domes just visible to the right of it and in
;

cent architecture of his home town. He is smoother, brighter and more detailed. front of the cathedral, on the waters edge,
is the magnificent Doges Palace, with its

two of arcades. Assorted boats are

tiers
scattered over the wide stretch of water,
mostly elegant sailing ships bringing
merchandise to the city, and gondolas
ferrying its inhabitants from one place to
another. On the quay in the foreground
fishing nets have been hung out to dry;
and a fashionable lady with a fan strolls
along on the arm of her escort.
Only the corner of the tall building in
the foreground is visible, but its height
and shadow exaggerate the space and light
in the long view across the water. The
scene is observed in minute detail, yet
Canaletto has caught its freshness and life.
The people, the rich textures of old
buildings, with their subtle and endless
variations of colour, the long shadows and
the warm Venetian light, are depicted
with exceptional realism.

RIGHT himself as a dramatist in paint: My life. of movement and one feels

It is full

picture is my stage, and men and women that at any moment the cat might spring
William Hogarth (1697-1764)
my players. The Graham Children has a towards the bird or the baby reach the
highly theatrical quality the children look cherries. Reality and the symbols of music
The Graham :

as if they are about to take part in a play, and time suggesting the flow of life have
Children (i 742 ) and even the cat, the birdcage, the been brought together.
furniture, the bowl of fruit and the go-cart This richly painted group portrait is a
The Tate Gallery, London adorned with a dove, seem to be part of a superb example of Hogarths ability to
stage set. extract the social implications of his
The of both painting and print-
arts On the right is Richard Robert, who subjects. He was a perceptive commen-
making were equally important features in succeeded his father as apothecary to the tator on the manners and customs of his
the long and active career of William Chelsea Hospital. He is playing a bird- time, and The Graham Children provides a
Hogarth. He was apprenticed to a gold organ to the caged goldfinch above his revealing picture of the security and
and silver engraver, and studied painting head. Henrietta, next to him, is dancing to comfort of their middle-class eighteenth-
with the decorative artist Sir James the music, and their elder sister is century lives.
Thornhill, whose daughter he married. tantalizing the baby, Anna Maria, with a
He is often called the father of British small bunch of cherries. A tabby cat
painting; certainly he was the first native- behind the boys chair has its eyes fixed
born artist to produce work that was firmly on the bird with a look of deter-
innovative. His paintings and engravings mination and menace.
satirizing contemporary morality were an The domestic interior is richly fur-
entirely new venture
in art, and they nished with a lacquered side-table, a large
became immensely popular. Prints were painting on the wall, and a fine clock
widely circulated, and so many of them surmounted by the golden figure of Cupid
were copied without his consent that holding a scythe, the symbol of time. The
Hogarth promoted the Copyright Act of floor is made up of squares of marble and
1
735 to protect both painters and eng- the receding perspective gives depth to
ravers from piracy. the composition.
Portraits, informal groups and oc- The details of the girls delicate dresses,
casional decorative schemes were his the flowers in their lace caps, and their
other chief subjects. He thought of sparkling eyes give the painting enormous
61
Jean-Baptiste-Simeon lack of money, led him to opt principally flowers, eggs and cooking pots are all

Chardin (1699-1779) for still life subjects, for which there was a painted with such feeling for texture that
ready market. one could reach out and touch them.
The Kitchen Maid (, 73 8) His success in his lifetime was not The Kitchen Maid shows a young
spectacular but steady and assured : his woman pausing for a moment in her work.
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC work was bought by distinguished inter- In one hand she holds a kitchen knife, in
national connoisseurs, he became a mem- the other a turnip she is peeling. She is

ber of the French Royal Academy, and dressed in simple earthy colours - cream,
Chardin, the son of a cabinet maker, lived Louis xv not only bought some of his terracotta, indigo and brown - under-
and worked in and around Paris all his life. paintings but gave him a pension and an lining the quiet, peaceful mood of the
His father regarded painting as a craft, apartment at the Royal Palace of the painting. On the floor are more veget-
similar to his own, with the result that Louvre. ables; and pots, pans, a huge chopping-
Chardin never received the full academic Chardins pictures are thoughtful and block with blood stains and a blue glazed
training required by a wide-ranging pro- quiet. His domestic scenes and animals, earthenware bowl containing the already
fessional painter. This, combined with a still lifes with stone jars, glass bottles, peeled vegetables surround her.
 Every object is painted in the finest draughtsman and engraver. He also Nature, said Boucher, was too green
brushwork and gently pointed with deli- studied for several years in Italy, and on and badly lit; he painted things as he
cate, gleaming touches of reflected light. his return to Paris embarked on a wished them to be, charming and uncom-
The plump shapes of the vegetables are triumphantly successful career. He be- plicated.
echoed by the rounded kitchen utensils came, with Watteau, the greatest Rococo Reclining Girl is probably a portrait of
and the chopping block. The human painter in France. one of the kings many mistresses, Louise
figure and the domestic objects blend The protege, and also teacher, of OMurphy. She is small and rounded,
together to suggest a life of simple activity Madame de Pompadour, the most famous stretched out naked on her stomach like a
in a style of painting of which Chardin was mistress of Louis xv, he became the kings baby after a bath; but her childishness is
a master. official court painter in 1765. He was belied by the glimpse of a rounded breast,
immensly and designed interiors,
versatile and her pose is anything but innocent it :

and dance
tapestries, theatrical, operatic emphasizes her voluptuous curves and
Francis Boucher (1703-70) productions, fans, porcelain and even provocative sensuality. Her delicately
slippers. Boucher was a highly decorative flushed skin, reflecting the pink silk

Reclining Girl (i 752 ) artist, and he admired above all the work draperies, and the velvet-covered couch,
of the great Italian Rococo painter the incense burner to sweeten the air, the
The Alte Pinakothek, Munich Tiepolo. cushions and curtains, all contribute to
One critic, disgusted with frivolity and the atmosphere of luxury and seduction.
Boucher, the son of a Parisian painter and artificiality, declared that Boucher had
lace designer, was taught by the French everything - except truth. But his work
artist Lemoyne, and worked as a was intended to please, not to instruct.
 RIGHT

George Stubbs (1724-1806)

The Milbanke and

Melbourne Families (c.i 77 o)

The National Gallery, London

This small, smooth and exquisitely fin-

ished painting captures all the apparent
ease and assurance of grand English
country life. Stubbs, painter to the
sporting aristocracy, made an intense
study of animal anatomy, which is now
one of the most famous chapters in the
history of British art; and he devised
spacious landscapes which acted as superb
backdrops to the animals and people who
were his principal subjects.

ABOVE well as a highly accomplished portrait she and Sir Joshua should meet the day
and first President of the Royal
painter, before, and the painter had so amused the
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92)
him
Academy, where his statue may be seen in little girl that when she came to sit for

Miss Bowles and her the courtyard to this day. He became she was relaxed and ready to enjoy herself.
Painter-in-Ordinary to George in, and Her cheeks are pink with pleasure and
Dog (i 77s) ten peers of the realm were his pall- excitement, and, as children do, she is

bearers when he was buried in St Pauls squeezing the dog on her lap so hard that
The Wallace Collection, London Cathedral. it lifts its paw in mild protest.
His success was achieved by tremen- The artist would have worked directly
Sir Joshua Reynolds, born in Devonshire, dously hard work, and he made the very on to the canvas, without preparatory
is perhaps the most significant figure in most of his skill. He ran an extremely drawings; and the confidence of his style
British painting. He came from a cultured active studio, where he employed other can be seen particularly clearly in the
family at a time when most English artists for the specialist work of painting flourishing swirl of the dogs tail. The
painters were impoverished and ill- backgrounds and draperies. warmth and vitality of Reynolds work,
educated, and, through his association He was as gifted in portraying the and the informality of his compositions,
with the literary and intellectual figures of likeness of a child as an adult, and this made him the most popular portrait
the time, brought about a radical change portrait of Miss Bowles with her dog is painter of his day.
in the status of the artist in Britain. an irresistibly appealing composition.
He was a writer and lecturer on art as Miss Bowless parents had ensured that

64
 Three men and a young woman, two a wit, highly intelligent, ambitious, sen- aged and elderly, and the family re-
dogs and three horses are casually ar- sual and altogether formidable. John semblance between father and son.
ranged, with brilliant artifice, under an Milbanke, Elizabeths brother, is the A clump of pink hollyhocks on the
old spreading oak tree, with a hazy lake rather foppishyoung man with an elegant right, framed by the legs of Lord
glinting in the distance, and, on the right, dapple-grey horse, standing between his Melbournes chestnut horse, picks up the
a massive outcrop of rock. The middle- father and brother-in-law. Although the pink in the clouds and the delicate shade
aged man leaning on his daughters pony landscape is invented, a sort of general- of Lady Melbournes fine dress. These
cart is Ralph Milbanke, landowner
Sir ized all-purpose slice of English country- light colours, and the coats of the horses
and head of an old Yorkshire family. (One side, it suggests a certain kind of country and spaniel, balance the shadows and the
of Sir Ralphs grand-daughters married life. deep greens of the overhanging tree.
the poet Byron, with whom his grand- Stubbs brought to horses, dogs and The three horses are sharply silhouet-
daughter-in-law, Lady Caroline Lamb, people a kind of passionate accuracy. The ted in an elegant frieze, arranged in such a
was to have an affair.) On the right, on a characters of the different animals - the way as to provide continual interest across
chestnut horse, is Peniston Lamb, Lord carriage horse, nervy high-flying
the the picture; none of them blocks the
Melbourne, by all accounts a weak and chestnut - are as well observed as the spectators view of another, yet the skill
self-indulgent man, and Stubbss likeness people, whom Stubbs did not flatter this requires is unobtrusive. The energy
confirms that description. His wife, the although they were his patrons. He clearly and flow of line across the entire canvas
former Miss Elizabeth Milbanke, only shows the large noses of the two young give life what is essentially a formal
to
twenty years old at the most, is poised and men and the papery look of Sir Ralph group portrait, and that Stubbs was abl*
dignified. She was said to be a beauty and Milbankes skin, typical of the middle to achieve this is part of his genius.

65
ABOVE long barrel points downwards, echoing landscape painter above all, and was
the trunk of the massive oak tree behind. much influenced by the work of the
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) A hunting dog eagerly looks up at him, seventeenth-century Dutch masters,

Mr and Mrs Robert and completes the accessories of the

country squire.
particularly Hobbema; but
bination of exceptionally fine landscapes
his com-

Andrews (c.i 74 8- 9 ) The spreading view shows to per- with skilled portraiture make clear the
fection the fertile farming country of East reasons for his fame and enormous
The National Gallery, London Anglia, with sheep in the middle distance, success in his own lifetime.
sheds for the cattle, and fields well
Thomas Gainsborough may well have fenced and hedged. The corn in the
been even younger than his subject, fields is not fully gathered, and the stooks
Robert Andrews, when he painted this may well be used here as a symbol of
double portrait of the young squire and fertility. The sky is overcast, but a weak
his wife near his own birthplace in sun flickers through the rather stylized
Suffolk. It is a young mans painting, not clouds.
completely resolved in all respects, but The composition of the painting rests RIGHT
Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews combines on two separate areas, each given equal
simplicity, psychological insight and
Jean-Honore
weight: one is the exquisitely detailed
genuine feeling for landscape in full landscape, which in the far distance has a Fragonard (1732-1806)
measure. In some respects it is thus more freedom and ease in the brushwork, and in
satisfying than the romantic, fullblown, the foreground portrays each blade of
The Swing (1768-9)
and sometimes contrived portraits of grass with delicate clarity; the other is the
The Wallace Collection, London
Gainsboroughs maturity, when he, with young couple themselves. They are in
Reynolds, was one of the most fashionable sharp focus, and their characters are well
and successful portrait painters of his day. defined in their appearance. He is a little At the age of fifteen Fragonard was clerk to
The young couple are newly married, arrogant and complacent perhaps, but a a lawyer in Paris, but he showed more
and the girl, who isonly about sixteen, wears man with responsibilities, who cares for talent for art, and in 1752 he went to the
a grand blue satin dress - possibly part of his land and possessions; she is prim, French masters of the day, Chardin and
her trousseau. Her husband, aged about unsure of herself and rather self- Boucher, to train as a painter, followed
twenty-three, rests his elbow on the conscious. Their elegant clothes, and the by five years at the French Academy in

elaborate iron scrollwork of the bench on peaceful country scene surrounding them, Rome. He worked with all the accepted
which his wife is sitting, his hand in his provide a realistic picture of their stable, subjects of the time: history, portraits,
pocket, and his flintlock gun held casually prosperous lives. and scenes set in landscape.
but correctly in the crook of his arm. Its Gainsborough regarded himself as a He more or less abandoned a public,

66
official career to work for private clients as de St Julien, who commissioned the The elegant marble statue of Cupid on the
decorator and Love, courtly and
artist. picture and he and the lady are portrayed
;
left, the fine clothes of the actors them-
otherwise, love as a grand game, became in the garden of the house where she lives. selves in this romantic, amorous moment,
his speciality. He decorated rooms for The intention of his look is obvious, and the filtered sunlight, all contribute to
several of Louis xvs mistresses, among recollecting past loveand dwelling with a sense of luxury in a natural setting,
them Madame de Pompadour and delighton the thought of love to come. In manicured so finely that not a leaf is out of
Madame du Barry. In spite of his control of the swing is an older man, place. The Baron, reclining in a shrub it
associations with the court, Fragonard possibly the ladys acquiescent husband. seems, would perhaps in real life have felt
managed to survive the French The painting centres on the trim and a little uncomfortable; but here all is ease
Revolution and worked as curator at the joyful young woman, her legs in their and joy in a setting of formal frivolity. The
Louvre; but he finally fell from official white stockings kicking out from a froth of painting sums up a mood not of ideal love
favour under Napoleon, and he died poor. petticoats; one of her tiny shoes flies but of ideal flirtation.
The Swing is an enchantment, and it through the air as though she were
sums up the reasons why Fragonards art sending a favour to her lover. The lighting
has always pleased. shows a charming,
It cleverly conveys the impression that we
exquisitely dressed young woman, the are not looking in at a real garden, but at a
mistress of the reclining man who is theatrical scene, in which the lovers are
gazing at her and up her skirts with such playing parts, both for their own enjoy-
languid, affected ardour. He is the Baron ment and for ours.

67
Francisco Goya (1746-1828) Napoleons forces when they took over squad are depicted with horrifying re-
Spain in 1808. But he had another side alism: the dead body slumped on the
The Third of May ,
which came to the fore in his sensual and ground, the pool of blood and the
subtle portraits of women, indicating the expressions of the victims are all shown
1808 ( 1814-15) immense scope of his talent. He became with a shocking intensity. They are

The Prado, Madrid the greatest Spanish painter between portrayed not as heroes of war, but as
Velazquez and Picasso, and one of the ordinary frightened men, pleading for
The artistic career of the Spanish artist greatest artists in Europe. their lives and showing disbelief, terror
Goya was long and successful. He was The Third of May is one of a pair of and even a sort of crazed bravado in the
principal painter toKing Charles iv of paintings which together depict two days face of death.
Spain and director of the Spanish Royal in the shortlived uprising of the people of Our attention is focused on the central
Academy, and prodigiously gifted as a Madrid against the French troops in the figureby means of various devices: Goya
draughtsman, print-maker and painter. Napoleonic Wars. The paintings were has painted him, and the figures
He was born in Saragossa, had a con- commissioned a few years after the event, surrounding him, considerably larger in
ventional apprenticeship in art, and with the command to the artist to proportion to their executioners than they
became known principally as a painter of perpetuate with his brush the most would be in reality; the massacre is taking
portraits and of the horrors of war. notable and heroic actions or events of our place at night by the harsh light of a
His portraits are often devastatingly glorious insurrection against the tyrant of lantern and the kneeling mans white shirt
candid, and so caustic in their portrayal of Europe; and Goya has produced two of reflects its glare; the soldiers are shooting
the corruption and arrogance of the the most electrifying and dramatic works at point-blank range; and the mans pose,
Spanish monarchy that it is surprising his inEuropean art. with arms outstretched, is extremely eye-
commissions continued. He criticized This painting depicts the second day, catching and dramatic. These tactics of
violently the cruelty, hypocrisy and when Spanish civilians were executed by composition and lighting heighten the
stupidity that surrounded him; and in a the invading army in the aftermath of the drama and fear, and reveal Goya at his
series of prints called The Disasters of War fighting. The group of Spaniards cower- most passionate.
he revealed the savage brutality of ing in panic in front of a French firing

68
Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
The Death of Marat (i 793 )
Les Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts,
Brussels
From early childhood, Jacques-Louis
David wanted only to draw, and his skill
as a draughtsman can be seen in all his
work. He was part of an eighteenth-
century movement known as Neo-
classicism, which was a new return to
the classical art of ancient Greece and
Rome. He firmly believed the arts should
educate the public and give expression to
their ideals. Although he later supported
Napoleon, he was in his early years a
political activist. In1789 the Paris mob
stormed the Bastille, and much of Davids
work reflects the aims and ambitions of
the French Revolution.
Jean-Paul Marat was a leader of the
Revolution and a friend of Davids. He
suffered from a painful and irritating skin
disease, which it is thought he contracted
in the Paris sewers when he was in hiding
from This required
his political enemies.
him frequently immerse himself in a
to
medicinal bath, and it was during one of
these baths, on 13 July 1793, that
Charlotte Corday, a revolutionary in a
rival group, gained admittance to his
presence and stabbed him to death.
It is with the utmost sympathy that
David depicts the poverty and simplicity
in which Marat lived and worked. Above
the sad and gruesome scene, the back-
ground is dark and sombre, its deep
shadows drawing our attention more
closely to the main subject. The figure has
a ghostly, compelling quality, and was
intended to keep alive the memory
great revolutionary martyr.
David has portrayed Marats death
with an uncanny fidelity. Blood has dried
on the sheet and on the knife itself, which
lies on the floor where it has fallen. The
letter by which Charlotte Corday gained
admittance is still resting - in a grip of
death - in Marats hand. On the simple
wooden box, its shape reminiscent of a
tombstone, are Marats writing materials,
and on its side the artist has added a
dedication to him. The subtle colours,
contrasting light and shade and meti-
culous detail combine in a work that has
all the dramatic horror of the event itself,
and is full of compassion for the victim.
of a
BELOW ventional realism in art, and was pro- mysterious mythology, verbal and visual,
foundly influenced by Michelangelo, as view of the world.
to express his
William Blake (1757-1827)
The Ancient of Days, or God Creating
can be seen in his muscular figures and in
the enormously dramatic concepts behind the Universe is one of his best-known
The Ancient of Days, or much of his work. The scenes he depicted images. It
,

may have come to him com-

God Creating the were of his own invention, often illus- plete in a vision; and
was an image to
it

trating his own poems, or linked to which he frequently returned. It formed

Universe (i 794 ) of Dante, the frontispiece to one of his prophetic
imaginative interpretations

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
William Blake, the English poet, artist
and mystic, was first apprenticed to an
engraver and went on to study at the
Royal Academy Schools. He reacted
strongly against conformity and con-
Milton and the Bible. books, Europe, from which this print is
Deeply if unconventionally religious, taken, and Blake was engaged in hand-
he was subject to visions; and his fig- colouring a copy of it on his deathbed.
ures, although evidently muscular, are Urizen, the Creator, kneels in the orb of
strangely insubstantial and unearthly, the sun, and reaches out into the void with
often surrounded by a supernatural light. a pairof golden compasses, with which to
Blake invented a highly personal and measure and plan the universe and its
creatures. His long hair, and even longer
beard, stream in the wind to his right, and
rays of brilliant light burst through the
clouds surrounding him. His powerful
body is composed of finely balanced
horizontal and vertical lines, framed by
the disc of the sun, and linked to the
diagonal lines of the compass. The left

arm of the compass corresponds to a line

taken through the kneeling figure from
right knee to left and contributes to the
wonderfully satisying harmony of the
composition.
It is a work of tremendous elemental
strength and energy, revealing something
of the force that inspired Blakes visionary
mind.

RIGHT
Caspar David
Friedrich (1774-1840)

The Stages of Life (1835)

Museum der Bildenden Kunste, Leipzig

Romanticism was a movement in paint-

ing, poetry and music in which the
imagination was given free rein to conjure
up moods and emotions from beautiful
dramatic landscapes. It reached its height
in Germany, France and Britain in the
early part of the nineteenth century. The
German painter Caspar David Friedrich
was one of the greatest of all the
Romantics. Born in Griefswald (then
Swedish Pomerania), he studied at the
Copenhagen Academy from 1794-8, and

70
settled in Dresden for the rest of his life. golden evening sky, streaked near the to another world. Eventually a ship will
He expressed with a brilliant clarity horizon with violet clouds. The graceful come to collect each one of them, but it
something of the mystery of nature silhouettes of five sailing ships are out- seems the artists is about to take
journey
through his magically beautiful land- lined in the clear light as they drift in to place. He has passed through the stages of
scapes. They combine a number of shore on a calm sea. At the edge of the life.

landscape features, painted with meti- water are five people. A strange figure The strange clear colours are striking
culous care and accuracy, in a largely with his back to us, representing the artist and highly individual, and the elusiveness
imaginary composition designed to reveal himself, walks towards the others; he of the subject and atmosphere makes it
something of the meaning and spirit of looks old and feeble and leans on his stick an intriguing and mysterious painting.
life, rather than to represent an actual for support. An unknown man beckons
scene. As Friedrich himself put it, The him on, and with his other hand points to
artist should not only paint what he sees Friedrichs children on the bank, who are
before him, but also what he sees within playing with a small Swedish flag. Their
him. In his own time he was called a mother sitting next to them also points
genius of gloom, but his contemplative towards their two central figures.
paintings are calm and hopeful, and they There an implication of an imminent
is

frequently have a religious significance, if voyage, although no sign of well-wishers

not a religious subject. on the shore. A boat approaching to carry
He often chose the glow of dawn, sunset someone out to sea is an ancient symbol of
or twilight for his paintings, and in The death, and the five ships corresponding to
Stages of Life the scene is set against a the five figures suggest the journey will be

7i
Joseph Mallord William explored Britain with great and he zeal, employment over, and she was towed up
Turner (1775-1851) went abroad and
to Venice, Switzerland, the Thames be broken up. Turner
to
notably to Paris where he saw the Old witnessed this event, and his painting
The Fighting Masters looted by Napoleon from all over captured the imagination of critics and
Europe. public alike. was generally thought that
It
Tenter air e (1838) He was short, stout, an eccentric, and the picture connected the Temeraires last
latterly a recluse. He was also ambitious journey to the waning of British sea
The National Gallery, London
and outstandingly productive: sketch- power, symbolized by the dying sun.
books, thousands of drawings and water- The painting has an enormous variety
Turner was one of the two outstanding colours (nearly 20,000 in the British of texture: Turner used not only con-
geniuses of British painting (the other was Museum alone) and over five hundred oil ventional brushes and palette knife, but
Constable). His characteristics even fit the paintings survive. Almost his entire often his hands, paint rags and the ends of
dictionary definition of genius: unusual artistic life was devoted to landscape his brushes.
capacity for imaginative creation, intel- painting in all its guises; formal and The tall ship without her sails is ghostly
lectual power, unusual energy and informal, seascapes, city scenes, historical and mysterious, and she is shepherded up
precocity. and architectural scenes of dazzling the river by a squat tug belching fiery
He wasborn and brought up in Covent accuracy and fidelity to the real world. In steam from its funnel. The whole scene is
Garden, London, where his father was a his book Liber Studiorum ,
landscape is bathed in the colours of the brilliant
barber and wig-maker. It was in London categorized as Historical, Mountainous, sunset reflected in the water, so that the
that he received his early training and Marine and Architectural, not to mention stately warship and the tug seem to be part
employment, and he spent most of his life Epic, Elegant and Elevated Pastoral. of the river and the sky.
there, yet he was to develop into the most When dealing with real landscape (rather Shining translucent colours were
original landscape painter of the nine- than imaginary) he what he
painted Turners hallmark; he created extra-
teenth century. By the age of fourteen actually saw, and never added what he ordinarily beautiful effects with colour
he had enrolled at the Royal Academy knew was there but could not see. and light so that his subjects seem to melt
Schools, and a few years later he was The Temeraire was a warship of almost magically into the atmosphere.
employed as a copyist, with a handful of ninety-eight guns, launched in 1798 and
other young artists, by a famous con- active at the Battle of Trafalgar; but by
noisseur and collector Dr Munro. Turner 1838 she was outmoded, her days of

72
 ) .

John Constable (1776-1837) moving clouds in a vast expanse of sky vegetable garden near the old tiled
seem to sum up the spirit of the English cottage, and the centre of it all is the wide
The Hay- Wain (1821 landscape. He wrote of his love for the shallow river. A man can be seen in the
sound of water escaping from mill dams bushes on its far bank, with a rowing boat
The National Gallery, London . . . willows, old rotten banks, slimy posts moored close by, and a group of ducks in

& brickwork ., and he said he would

. . mid-stream. By the Watergate outside the
John Constable was born in Suffolk, the always paint his own places best . . cottage a woman appears to be washing
son of a mill-owner, farmer and mer- Painting is but another word for feeling. clothes or maybe collecting water in the
chant; and the scenes that surrounded The Hay-Wain is one of a series of six large jug beside her. A farm dog trots
him in his childhood are the ones he later large paintings (each about six feet across) along the near bank watching the two men
made famous through his beautiful land- in which he expresses his feelings for as their horse-drawn wagon makes its way
scapes. He went to the Royal Academy landscape superbly. He completed it in through the river. Little touches of red,
Schools in his early twenties, but not until about months, and would have made
five often to be found in Constable landscapes,
his forties did he achieve a measure of sketches of the subject on the spot before provide a focal point.
Hay-Wain was shown at the
success. The starting work in oils in his London studio. It is a very peaceful scene, but
Royal Academy in 1821, and in 1824 it The paint is applied in short and long, Constables eye for detail has noted all the
was exhibited with two other Constable rough and smooth strokes, making a rich small features which might otherwise be
landscapes at the Paris Salon, where it was variety of texture Constable has picked overlooked. He draws attention to them
awarded a gold medal. The best-known out the characteristic elements of the with little pinpoints of light against the
paintings of the English landscape are landscape light glitters off moist leaves in
:
shadows, filling the composition with
those by John Constable, and of them all shadowy places; water reflects the plants interest, and building up a picture which

The Hay-Wain is the most famous. along banks and the light in the sky;
its typifies nineteenth-century English rural

Constables life was divided between and the sort of cloudy day, with
it is life.

London and Suffolk, but it is East Anglia, intermittent sunshine, which is typical of
and Suffolk in particular, which to him English weather.
was the heart of England. He has caught rich farming country, and there are
It is

its character so superbly that his paintings signs everywhere of activity: in the
of winding streams and rivers, flat water- distance are cattle and farm-workers, in
meadows, brick farm buildings, and fast- the foreground a low fence borders a

73
Jean-Auguste-Dominique portraits and nudes. He intensely admired shining satin curtain, and the peacock
Ingres (1780-1867) the smooth perfectionism of Raphael, and feather fan against her smooth skin - all
this had an influence on him which can be enhance the feeling of sensuous luxury
La Grande seen in the immaculate finish of the and seduction. The odalisque turns her
Grande Odalisque. head to the spectator with a confidently
Odalisque (1814) An odalisque, a female slave or con- provocative gaze, subtly combining the

The Louvre, Paris cubine of a Turkish harem, was a popular head of a Madonna with the body and
theme in the early nineteenth century. languid nakedness of a traditional Venus
The lure of the Orient and an excuse to in a way that is tantalizing and somewhat
Suffering only occasional setbacks, Ingres paint the female nude proved an appeal- shocking. At her feet is her hookah pipe,
had a glittering career. He was born at ing combination to many artists, es- steam escaping from its ornate stand; it
Montauban in France. His father, a pecially in France, and the subject occurs adds another element of the exotic East
mediocre artist, first taught him to paint, often in the work of Ingres. Here the and heightens the atmosphere of sensual
him
but, recognizing his sons talent, sent beautiful provocative woman wears only a indulgence which Ingres has portrayed
to the studio of David in Paris,
and then to headdress, similar to those worn by some with such coolness and style.
the School of Fine Arts. Ingres was of Raphaels Madonnas (see p. 37), and
passionate in his love of drawing, and the her pose recalls reclining nudes by Titian
importance of line is paramount in his and Giorgione. Yet her exceedingly long
work. back came in for a great deal of criticism
Nearly twenty-five years of his life were when the painting was first displayed in
spent in Italy, mostly in Rome, where for Paris in 1819. The critics complained that
a periodhe was Director of the French she is anatomically inaccurate: she has
Academy. He received many official three vertebrae too many and lacks
honours in France, and no matter who muscles, life and substance. This may be
ruled the country, Ingres remained in partially true, but it gives her a wonderful
favour. smoothness and elegance of line, and a
His most ambitious paintings, with sensuality that is highly erotic.
classical or historical themes, are admired The richness of the materials and
less today than his vivid and compelling textures - the soft fur beneath her legs, the

74
Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) ed off the coast of West Africa. The indication of the influence of Caravaggio,
incident caused a scandal at the time and their bodies are wonderfully taut and
The Raft of the because of the captains ineptitude, the muscular, like those of Michelangelo.
lack of lifeboats, and the number of people The composition based on the
Medusa (i8ig)
drowned as a result. A
hundred and fifty
is

tension between two diagonals: the raft

The Louvre, Paris passengers and crew were crammed on to itself and the movement of the figures take
a makeshift raft, but two weeks later only the eye inwards from the left, while the
Gericault was born in Rouen, the son of fifteen of them were alive to tell the tale. ropes and the mast, with its billowing sail,

wealthy parents, and unlike the majority Gericault worked for over a year on the strain back to hold the structural balance.
of artists he had a measure of financial huge painting, some sixteen feet high and Gericaults ambition was to shine, to
independence all his life. He was fanati- over eighteen feet wide, in a special studio illuminate, to astonish the world, but The
cally interested in horses, both as a painter hired for the purpose. He launched a raft Raft of the Medusa was considered by
and as a reckless and his tragic death
rider, into the sea to see how would work; he
it some as an attack on a government which
at the age of thirty-two was hastened by interviewed survivors; and he visited had allowed inefficiency to lead to tra-
the after-effects of riding accidents. But in hospitals and morgues to make studies of gedy, and it was given a lukewarm
about twelve years he produced enough the ill, the dying and the dead. reception when it was first shown in Paris
work to leave a substantial legacy of He chose to illustrate the moment when in 1819. Now, however, it is appreciated
paintings when he died. some of the survivors first glimpsed their as an outstanding work of the French
He trained in the studios of two French rescue ship, the Argos on the horizon, but
,
Romantic movement, brilliantly con-
painters, Carle Vernet and Guerin, but it vanished from sight, although later re- structed and intensely powerful.
Rubens, Michelangelo, Caravaggio and turned to pick them up. Some of the raf ts
the Venetian painters were perhaps the passengers were seized with excitement
strongest influences on his work. He and tried desperately to attract the ships
developed a superb flair for composition attention, but others, if they were not
and a dramatic style that are clearly already dead, were sunk in desolation and
displayed in The Raft of the Medusa. too weak to move. The subdued colours
In 1816 a French military transport are sombre and expressive of the horror of
frigate, the Medusa, laden with settlers the whole event. The sharply contrasting
and soldiers for Senegal, had been wreck- light and shade on the figures is a clear

75
BELOW under Guerin - the teacher of Gericault, have undertaken a modern subject, a
whom he ardently admired. Delacroix barricade, and if I have not conquered for
Ferdinand-Victor-Eugene
visited London and became deeply in- my country, at least I will paint for her.
Delacroix (1798-1863) terested in English landscape painting, The painting is grand, stirring and
especially the work of Constable, and in highly political; and when it was exhi-
Liberty Leading the the epic poets of England and Germany. bited in 1831 the coarseness of the
People (1830) He copied the masters in the Louvre, characters depicted aroused controversy
notably Rubens and Veronese, and al- and criticism. Bare-breasted Liberty,
The Louvre, Paris though superb draughtsman, colour was
a beautiful and resolute, waving the
is

his passion. He declared that when the people forward to the barricades. She
Delacroixs mother came of a family of tones are right, the lines draw them- carries a bayonet and the tricolour banner
noted designer-craftsmen, and his legal selves. of France, and on her head is the Phrygian
father, who died when Delacroix was a He had an enormous range of subject cap of Liberty. She is striding barefoot
little boy, was an active revolutionary and matter,much of which was based on through a field littered with corpses, and
Foreign Minister under the Directoire. literary or historical incidents of the past, behind her is an armed band of men and
Unprovable but tenacious rumour sug- but although he lived through a time of boys, determined and ruthless in their
gested that Talleyrand, the great poli- political upheaval, Liberty Leading the fight for freedom from oppression. They
tician and statesman, was Delacroixs real People is his only major work which are armed with swords, muskets, pistols
father. In any event a network of con- appears to comment directly on a topical and even rocks as they march through the
nections, allied with his talent, helped to event in France. He witnessed the fighting streets of Paris. In the distance are the
secure official patronage for him through- in the streets in the Revolution of 1830, towers of Notre Dame amid a low-lying
out his life. which brought Louis-Philippe to the haze of gunsmoke.
By 1816 he was studying painting throne, and he wrote to his brother, I In Delacroixs crowded composition
there is an underlying order; the figure of idealizing it in the way that many artists of them are probably Courbets models,
Liberty and the two bodies in front of her had done in the past. He painted portraits, and recently it has been shown that his
form a triangle, and the use of red in the nudes, landscapes, and scenes from every- words were partly a smoke-screen con-
sash and scarf of the figure looking day life which sometimes reflected abject cealing friends from his childhood and
upwards create a powerful vertical link poverty in a way that caused discomfort people he admired. On the right is the
with the red in the banner above, an and brought him harsh criticism. He was philosopher Proudhon, the poet
example of his highly imaginative use of intensely vain, and quite often painted Baudelaire, his patron Alfred Bruyas, an
colour. He has been labelled a Romantic, himself, romantically handsome, pipe- art collector and his wife, and a fellow
and although the harsh realities of death smoking, greeting a patron with supreme painter Champfleury.
and destruction are exposed in all their self-confidence, or waving at the sea from The painting is highly personal and
horror, the painting has a glory and the shore, as though he, rather than revolves around the painters work and
patriotism that is highly romantic and nature, were the master of the waves. the Bohemian world in which he lived. It
inspirational. The Studio of the Painter has all the was, in his own words, a real allegory
elements which typify Courbets work. It summing up seven years of my artistic and
is theatrical and flamboyant, and the life- moral life, and it is a work which people

size figures are painted with tremendous have been discussing ever since. It
BELOW
vigour and energy. The artist himself combines Courbets flair for unusual
Gustave Courbet (1819-77) dominates the composition. He is seated composition, rich colour and dramatic
at his easel in front of a huge landscape, in lights and darks, and reveals a great deal
The Studio of the which the naked model presumably will about himself and the world he inhabited.
be included, and a small boy gazes up at
Painter (1854-5)
him with rapt attention.
The Louvre, Paris Courbet has filled the room with people
who had some personal significance in his
Gustave Courbet was the son of a life. He has said that amongst the crowd

substantial country farmer at Ornans, are A Jew I saw in England as he was

near the Swiss border of France. By 1839 making his way through the swarming
he had moved to Paris, and taught himself traffic of the London streets behind . . .

to paint largely by copying the pictures in him is a self-satisfied cure with a red face
the Louvre. ... a huntsman, a reaper, a professional
He took his role as an artist very strong man, a clown, an Irish-woman
and felt it his duty to depict the
seriously, suckling a child. There is a motley
world around him as it was, without collection of people on the left, but most
Samuel Palmer (1803-81) and bronchitis, counselled a move from plants, and a mysterious female figure
London, and with his father Palmer went stands at the end beyond the apple tree.
In a Shoreham to live in Shoreham, a village in the Behind her a tree-covered hillside rises
Darent valley in Kent. For nearly a into the windy grey sky. In a delicate
Garden (1830-5)
decade he produced small landscapes, variety of texture and by the most subtle
The Victoria and Albert Museum, charged with intense religious feeling and exaggeration of reality Palmer expresses
London celebrating the beauty of the world here his wonder at the miracle of spring.
around him. The fertility of the earth; a
Samuel Palmer was born in London, the tree laden with fruit, people returning in
son of a bookseller. He was frail and procession in the twilight from a service at
highly-strung as a boy, and after only a the village church : these were his sub-
few years of conventional schooling he jects. The Darent valley was for Palmer a
was educated privately. His artistic talent re-discovered Eden.
was evident very early in his life, and by In a Shoreham Garden centres on an old
the age of fourteen he had exhibited at the apple tree laden with blossom. The tree
Royal Academy. In 1824 he met the artist itself had a specialand almost mystical
William Blake, whose visionary work significance for Palmer - for him it was the
made a strong impression on him. Tree of Paradise. A path leads into the
Ill health, probably caused by asthma painting, bordered by a variety of garden

78
Jean Francis Millet (1814-75) painting in its time because people saw it over grain they can find. Their bent
as criticizing a which allowed
society figures have a rounded and superbly
The Gleaners (i857 ) extreme poverty. But the artist was in fact sculptural quality in the calm beauty of
celebrating a simple hard-working and the countryside, reflecting Millets in-
The Louvre, Paris even religious life, rather than making terest form and outline. The rich
in
critical social comment. Millet, in his browns, ochres and greys of the field
For almost half his life Millet lived in youth a gifted portrait painter, declared merge with the natural colours of their
Barbizon, a village near Paris that became that it was the human side of life that he simple peasant costumes, as if the figures
a renowned throughout Europe
centre most wanted to portray in his art, and The are an integral part of the landscape. The
and America for painters of landscape and Gleaners is an unsentimental statement peaceful harmony of Millets painting
country His parents were peasant-
life. about the back-breaking effort as well as evokes the unchanging epic simplicity of a
farmers near Cherbourg, but they en- the dignity of work in the fields. rural existence. It is not a fleeting moment
couraged his talent and sent him to have In the pale clear distance a crowd of that he has depicted, but a continuing way
professional training locally; and by his workers are cutting and binding corn into of life.
early twenties Millet was studying in sheaves, and loading them on to horse-
Paris. He made a deliberate choice to drawn wagons from afarm on the horizon.
concentrate on scenes from rural life, And in the foreground three peasant
often based on memories of his childhood. women are scouring the newly-harvested
The Gleaners was a highly controversial field and filling their aprons with any left-

79
ABOVE temporary He was one of the first
life. new Victorian terraces which catered for
world to use photography to
artists in the the holiday population - everything that
William Powell Frith (1819-1909)
record a scene he wished to paint. typified an English seaside resort at the
It was with three great paintings of time - concentrated in a delightfully
Ramsgate Sands (1852-4)
nineteenth-century English life that he
is

animated and bustling composition,

Royal Collection made his name : Life at the Seaside was the which evokes the times and the people
first, followed by Derby Day and The with unusually acute penetration.
Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Railway Station. Crowds had to be kept
Albert exercized a powerful influence on back with protective ropes when these
the artistic taste and inclinations of pictures were shown at the Royal
England during her reign, and Frith was Academys annual exhibitions, and Life at
one of Victorias favourite artists. He the Seaside was bought for a thousand
began as a rebel who did not even want to guineas by Queen Victoria at the Private
be an artist and finished as one of the most View.
successful painters of his day. It was painted in 1851 after a holiday at

He was born and brought up in Ramsgate, which was then a fashionable

Yorkshire, and his father was unusually Kent seaside town. The painting is like a
determined the boy should make a career novel by Dickens in that a multitude of
as a painter. He went first to train at Sasss characters and incidents have been
Academy in Bloomsbury, London, and brought together to create a picture that
then to the Royal Academy. By 1853 he teems with life and atmosphere. The gay
was a full Academician. Mostly he painted society throng, the children dressed in
historical scenes, episodes from Shake- replicas of adult clothing, the entertainers,
speare and from popular novels and plays; the buskers and the stall-holders who
only occasionally did he turn to con- amused the visitors to the beach, and the

80
ABOVE of England. The subject was inspired by and her gloved hand grasps her husbands
the fact that a young sculptor associated for comfort as they leave their homeland
Ford Madox Brown (1821-93)
with the Brotherhood, Thomas Woolner, behind. The tiny plump hands of their
had set out to seek his fortune in the small child can just be seen emerging from
The Last of England (i855 )
goldfields of Australia three years before. the folds of the womans cloak, and she
Birmingham City Art Gallery The circumstances were common enough holds them tightly in her lap. Cabbages
at the time: in 1852 there were 65,000 strung through the netting in the fore-
Ford Madox Brown was born in Calais of emigrants from Britain to Australia, few ground indicate the provisions needed for
English parents, and brought up and of whom ever returned. the long sea journey.
educated in Europe. He studied art in Brown used himself and his second Brown wrote that absolutely without
Belgium, France and Italy, and had wife Emma as models for the painting; regard to the art of any period or country,
settled in England by 1845. He had a and, to give an example of his dedication, I have tried to render this scene as it

varied career, was always highly esteemed to make sure he captured the authentic would appear, and the combination of
by his colleagues, but never achieved look of things on a dull day at sea, he did determined purpose for a better future
popular success. Although older than most of the painting outside, his hands and deep regret at leaving home are
they, he associated with the Pre- blue with the cold. summed up vividly in the expressions of
Raphaelite Brotherhood, that intense The couple are huddled together, the young married couple. The artist has
band of artists which included Holman sheltering from the sea-spray under a reproduced all the sensations and emo-
Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante huge umbrella, as the curve of the white tions of the experience, so that we feel we
Gabriel Rossetti. Brown painted a good of Dover recedes in the background.
cliffs know exactly what it was like, not only for
many historical pictures, and for most of Their silhouettes are sharply defined, and this couple but for all the others who
the 1 880s he worked on subjects of local the shape of the painting unites the embarked on such a momentous journey.
social history for Manchester Town Hall. composition and focuses our attention on
His serious,determined career is their figures. The ribbon of the womans
crowned by one work above all. The Last bonnet streams out to the side in the wind.
81
BELOW As a young man he was a founder are gone; it is the incense offered by
member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brother- departing summer to the sky; and it
Sir John Everett Millais (1829 96)
hood, a band of painters who wanted to brings one a happy conviction that Time
revive the sincerity and deep significance puts a peaceful seal on
Autumn Leaves (1855-6)
which they believed had existed in art John Ruskin, the
all that
great
is gone.
nineteenth-
Manchester City Art Galleries before the time of Raphael. Their work century critic, considered Autumn Leaves
was serious in subject matter, usually with to be the first instance of a perfectly
The English painter Sir John Everett a detailed natural setting, and it conveyed painted twilight; Millais had captured
Millais was one of the most prosperous a spiritual message through a variety of the glow within the darkness. And the
artists in history. He entered the Royal symbols. artistswife Effie wrote that he wished to
Academy Schools when he was only Four years before beginning this paint- paint a picture full of beauty and without
eleven, the youngest pupil ever accepted. ing Millais had remarked to a fellow Pre- subject. Yet Millais himself has recorded
He was elected a Member of the Royal Raphaelite, Is there any sensation more that Autumn Leaves was not just a
Academy knighted in 1885, and
in 1863, delicious than that awakened by the odour charming, wistful scene, but was intended
became President of the Royal Academy To me nothing brings
of burning leaves? ,
to arouse the deepest religious reflections.
in 1896, the year of his death. back sweeter memories of the days that The two girls at the centre, one with a
basket, one holding leaves, are Effies
younger sisters, Alice and Sophie; the
others are local youngsters, Matilda
Proudfoot and Isabella Nicol, whom Effie
had found to model. The setting is the
garden of Annat Lodge in Perthshire, its
distant hills shading into purple at the far
horizon. The dresses of the two older girls
act as dark foils for the heap of papery
fallen leaves - bronzes, reds and pale
yellowish-greens - and the younger girls
are in russet and deep purple, blending
with the colours around them.
They have a mystical look, as if they are
taking part in an ancient ritual charged
with intense emotional feeling. Pictured at

twilight, near theend of the year, they are

just beginning their lives, suggesting an
eternal cyclic renewal. Millais has used
colour and the elements of nature to
convey his own understanding of the deep
spiritual beauty of life in this sensitive and
evocative painting.

RIGHT

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

Garden with Trees in

Blossom Spring, ,

Pontoise (i877 )

Jeu de Paume, The Louvre, Paris

Camille Pissarro was born and brought up

in Charlotte-Amalie, in the Danish West
Indies, where his father had a general
store. He was sent to school in France,
encouraged to paint by a sympathetic art
teacher, and found, on his return to the
West Indies, that clerical work in the
family business was more than he could
stand. He left for Venezuela with an artist
friend, and in 1855 he settled in Paris, to a
life of painting and poverty.
 s

A number of young Parisian painters, he ever attach blame in the frequent disappeared as objects fused under the
who came to be known as the quarrels that broke out around him. He effects of light and shade. Pissarro be-
Impressionists, formed a group in the remained friends with everybody and was lieved that every element in a picture
1870s. Their principal aim was to capture respected for his principles as much as for should be completely understood, and
the fleeting effects of colour and atmos- his art. should work together so that the eye takes
phere caused by the play of light and Pissarro was enormously prolific, and in the whole scene at once, as it does in
shade in the open air. The official Salons painted farming scenes, streets in Paris or life. He declared that nature was always
consistently scorned and rejected their country villages, all with a spontaneity to be consulted.
work because was unconventional and
it and life that captured his first vivid Cezanne worked with Pissarro at
appeared unfinished by the accepted impression of his subject. Garden with Pontoise, and sketched him, with his
standards, and from 1874 the Trees in Blossom was painted in the flowing beard, big hat and boots, a stick in
Impressionists held their own in- orchard behind Pissarros house, in the his hand and his materials strapped to his
dependent exhibitions. Pissarro was one small village of Pontoise, near Paris. The back as he set off for a days painting in the
of the founders of the movement. He was freshness of spring and new growth is country; and Cezanne said of him, He of
a little older than the others - Monet, perfectly conveyed by the flurry of falling all painters most closely approached
Renoir, Degas and Cezanne among them petals and the young green shoots under nature. He painted the French country-
- and was regarded almost as the honorary the apple trees. Blue and red roofs of the side at every season of the year, from
uncle of the group. He was a gentle man, village merge with feathery trees in the spring orchards to snow-bound winter
full of warmth, enthusiasm and curiosity, distance in the small brush strokes that landscapes, and demonstrates in all his
and he believed in freedom and mild cover the canvas. The Impressionists work the intense joy he derived from it.

anarchy. He never compromised; nor did interest in light meant that sharp outlines

83
ABOVE
He longed for public recognition, but trating an ancient legend. Even the picnic
Edouard Manet (1832-83)
his unconventional ideas led to him being itself consists of ordinary everyday food -
labelled a rebel, and his paintings were not exotic sweetmeats, but the bread rolls
Le Dejeuner sur
frequently refused by the official Salons. that were part of the staple diet of every
r Herbe (1863) He joined the Impressionist group soon Parisian. Manet wanted to be free to paint
after it was formed, and became one of its any subject that appealed to him, without
Jeu de Paume, The Louvre, Paris
key figures, although, fearing more dis- preserving conventions, and this attitude
paragement from the critics, he refused to was hard for his contemporaries to accept.
Manet came from a comfortable middle- take part in its exhibitions. The people represented in Le Dejeuner
class Parisian background - his father was The painting that caused one of the sur L' Herbe were well known to him: the
an official in the Ministry of Justice - and was an early
greatest upheavals of the time woman in the foreground is Victorine
his decision to be a painter met with work - Le Dejeuner Herbe - which
sur 1' Meurand, one of his favourite models,
strenuous family opposition. He studied preceded the Impressionists by nearly a and the men are his brother Eugene (who
under Couture, a much admired artist of decade. When it was first exhibited it latermarried one of the Impressionist
the day, who gave him a thorough caused a scandal, and the Emperor group, Berthe Morisot) and a young
grounding in technique; but his travels himself called it an affront to modesty. It Dutch sculptor Leon Koella-Leenhoff.
studying European art, and the ex- was revolutionary not because the woman He has shown them in a wooded country
perience he from copying Old
gained is naked, but because she is shown with setting, with a woman bathing in a pool in
Masters in the Louvre were equally two men who are fully clothed in con- the background, and a soft light filtering
valuable. He developed a brilliant tech- temporary dress, and they are engaged in through the trees, highlighting the pale
nique, based on a limited palette and the an ordinary conversation at an ordinary flesh against the rich deep greens of the
use of contrasting light and shade, and he picnic. The nude was no longer protected grass. The flesh tones are contrasted so
painted directly on to the canvas, which in the traditional way by the scene being dramatically with their dark background
gives his work great zest and vitality. set in some mythical place, and illus- as to seem almost luminous.

84
 Manets fresh approach, turning his and forbidding character. He was a instructs a soloist, and a violinist waits to
back on restricting conventions in order to member of the Impressionist group for a begin; one resting; one reading notices on
achieve his aims, was a startling revelation time, but his work was more academic a board at the back.
at the time, and it marked an important than theirs, and although he made intense The horizontal red line of the barre
change in nineteenth-century art. studies of lightand colour, he was forms a between the groups of
link
fascinated principally by movement. dancers, and the red is picked up in the

Many of his pictures are of women - girls sashes and the fan on the foreground

laundresses, hat-makers and, above all, chair, making a perfect rectangle.

ABOVE dancers - depicted in a deeply perceptive The open space in the centre, and the
and sympathetic manner in paintings, apparently random arrangement of people
Hilaire Germain Edgar drawings and sculptures. His interest in and chairs, accentuate the life and im-
Degas (1834-1917) movement can also be seen in his pictures mediacy of the painting. A mirror reflects
of horses in training, scenes at the race- a group outside the composition and a girl
Le Foyer de la Danse a track and people at work. whisks past a half-open door, perhaps on
rOper a (1872) The French poet Baudelaire remarked her way to another studio; everything
that artists mustdraw out of daily life suggests that movement is continuing
Jeu de Paume, The Louvre, Paris its epic aspect, and this is precisely beyond the scene portrayed.
Degas achievement as he shows us an Degas observed, analyzed and recorded
Degas, born in Paris, was the son of a everyday rehearsal at the ballet. with great care, by means of numerous
wealthy banker, and for most of his life he The painting has an air of uninter- sketches from life, before beginning work
was free to paint without depending on his The dancers seem to be
rupted activity. on a canvas in the studio. As a result he
art for a livelihood. He was something of a unaware of an observer and nothing is caught revealingly, and with extra-
recluse, troubled from his early forties posed some exercising at the barre, some
: ordinary realism, the movement and
with failing eyesight, a witty, formidable and watching as the teacher
listening atmosphere of his subject.

85
BELOW studied art and became friends with most This portrait of his mother, to whom he
of the great painters of his day. He was was deeply attached, is intensely personal
James Abbott McNeill
always a controversial figure, the centre of and full of character and atmosphere. She
Whistler (1834-1903) public quarrels and a libel case; and he is seen in profile, her grey hair rather
was also a dandy with a biting wit, who severely dressed and her hands folded in
Arrangement in Grey and could outdo even his friend Oscar Wilde her lap. The effect is dignified and a little

Black No 1 : Portrait of in verbal repartee. austere, but alleviated by the delicate lace
Whistler was a master etcher, and was at her neck and trimming her sleeves and
the Artist's Mother (i87 i) more interested in the formation of shapes cap.

The Louvre, Paris

and colours on a canvas than in subject As its title states, the painting is

matter. Art for arts sake was his motto, primarily an arrangement of colours, and
and his portraits of women, domestic itsmost arresting feature is the way in
Whistler was born in America and spent interiors and views of water are vehicles which areas of subtle colour have been
much of his life in England, and both for the creation of perfect compositions, weighed against each other. The womans
countries claim him own; yet he
as their each one made up of delicate gradations of dress is a bold expanse of black, balanced
belongs as much to France, where he tone. by the dark vertical mass of the curtain

86
and the frame of another Whistler paint- was accurately to portray nature and the
ing on the wall and these dark shapes are
;
times in which he lived. He spent long
offset by precisely calculated areas of grey periods in country districts of France and
and white. It is a sensitive and beautifully England, and for the last third of his life
constructed composition of blocks of lived in some isolation in Maine, painting
muted colour, in which any change in the sea and the lives of the people who
emphasis would upset the delicate lived by it. He had little conventional art
balance. education, but learned
Boston, and then worked as a free-lance
illustrator; a series of his black-and-white
pictures, published in
Harpers Weekly ,
provide
record of the horrors of the American
Civil War.
A moodof sombre acceptance of the
faint outline of another small fishing boat.
The Gloucester seems to be sailing right
out of the picture, and the spume and
spray fore and heighten the feeling of
aft
speed. The horizon line is sharply dissec-
ted by the steep angle of the boat, with
the heads of the crew clearly silhouetted
lithography in against the sky. Floating clouds reinforce
the white crests of the sea, and glistening
fish in the bottom of the boat echo the
New Yorks sparkling surface of the water.
a powerful Thepainting conveys a sense of physi-
cal enjoyment and energy; we can practi-
cally feel the spray and the freshness of the
air. The boys and the fisherman are

overwhelming power of nature character- wrapped up in the intensity of the

izes much of his later work but Breezing ;
moment as they manoeuvre their boat
BELOW Up is a marvellously exhilarating painting against the wind. Homers feeling for man
in which the force of the sea seems to be in relation to nature is magnificently-
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
more a challenge than a threat. The displayed in this spirited and evocative
brushwork is vigorous and energetic. It is picture.
Breezing Up (i87 6)
a windy day, probably summertime, off

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC the coast of the eastern seaboard, and
three boys are out fishing under the
guidance of an older man. Their boat, the
The American artist Winslow Homer - Gloucester is heeling into the wind; and
,

the greatest painter of New England the boys are helping to balance it, one of
country - was a leading figure in
life them controlling the rudder. In the
nineteenth-century American art. His aim distance are the sails of a schooner and the
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) which he believed to be the sphere, the seems to loom towards us and dominate
cylinder and the cone. the peaceful cultivated scene.
La Montague Sainte- He applied this analysis of structure to Cezanne painted this landscape many
La Montague Sainte-Victoire a scene in times, and this calculated, finely balanced
Victoire (1886-8)
,

his native Provence. The greens and picture reveals his intimate familiarity

The Courtauld Institute Galleries, terracottas in the foreground fade almost with his subject.
University of London imperceptibly into the pale blues and He became the most important of the
pinks of the distant rocky mountains, yet Post-Impressionists, who concentrated in
The work of Paul Cezanne has had such a each individual area is made up of a rigorously disciplined way on form and
far-reaching influence that he has been separate geometric slabs of colour care- outline. In his technique of exposing the
called the father of modern painting. It fully worked together to form the shapes structural shapes in nature he was also the
was not until theend of his life, however, in the landscape. forerunner of Cubism, which was fully
that his genius was widely recognized. In The sharply defined outline of the developed by Picasso and Braque (see pp.
the year after his death a major exhibition mountain is framed by the branches of 104, 105). He was greatly respected and
of his work was held, which startled the two Mediterranean pine trees, the fields admired by his fellow artists, and is

world. and houses set out in such a way that the generally considered now to be one of the
He was born in Southern France, the eye is guided through the painting to the most brilliant painters of the last hundred
son of a wealthy banker, but much of his Roman aqueduct in the middle distance, years.
working life was spent in Paris, where he and on to the peak of the mountain itself.
mixed with all the Impressionist painters The horizontal planes are perfectly balan-
of his day. Whereas other artists in the ced by the vertical tree trunk on the left
group sought to capture rapidly changing and the tower of the building beyond it.
light and colour, Cezannes greatest The effect of distance is emphasized by
achievement lay in exposing in planes of the scale of the foreground trees, but
colour the underlying shapes in nature, somehow the mountains bare surface

88
Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Women in the
Garden (1866-7)

Jeu de Paume, The Louvre, Paris

It was from one of Claude Monets

paintings - Impression Sunrise - that the
,

Impressionist group, of which he was the

leader, acquired its name.
He was born but spent most of
in Paris,
his working life on the Normandy coast
or in the French countryside, and he
passionately loved the sea and the open
air. Poverty dogged him for many years,

and the dreary problems of how to live

exasperated and depressed him. He was
reduced to scrounging from his friends
and patrons just to survive, and fre-
quently had to sacrifice finished work by
scraping off the paint in order to use the
canvas again.
He spent the summer of 1866 at Ville
dAvray, near Paris, and it was there
that he painted Women in the Garden. He
worked, as usual, out of doors, and had a
trench dug in the garden into which his
huge canvas - about eight-and-a-half feet
by six-and-a-half feet - was lowered, and
a pulley arrangement was rigged up so
that hecould reach the top. Light
interested him more than anything, and
he was concerned to reveal the fact that
colour only exists in terms of light, and
that it changes in all the normal variations
of daylight and shadow.
The scene in the garden is a study of the
effects of sunlight filtering through leaves,
casting dark shadows and dappling the
figures of the four women (who were all
modelled by Monets mistress Camille).
Roses are in bloom, the trees are dense spread in a circle over the grass. The criticism. Renoir said of him, Without
with the dark green leaves of mid- swirling movement of light summer Monet, without my dear Monet who gave
summer, and the women wear pale dresses makes an extremely romantic us all courage, we would have given up.
delicate dresses of embroidered cotton composition, and Monets understanding After about thirty years of struggle, their
and fine muslin. The seated woman of the effects of light bring out all its subtle work began to be understood and appre-
shields her face from the sun with a variations of colour and atmosphere. ciated and finally it has come to be valued
;

parasol; and Monet has caught precisely He is generally considered to be the as one of the most important movements,
the effect of shade-on the colour of her skin greatest of all the Impressionist painters. and certainly the most popular, of the
and the top of her dress, contrasting it He had an astonishing ability to observe nineteenth centurv.
with the bright undeflected light on her and record a scene with a fresh eye, as free
skirt and the flowers in her lap. The two as possible from influences and con-
women standing together are in the shade ventions, and to paint exactly what lay
ofa tree, with the sun flickering through before him as if he were seeing for the first
and forming patches of light on their time.
dresses. The fourth is in the full sun, its In spite of his destitute state, he more
strong rays shining directly on to the back than anyone stuck of
to the ideals
of her dress and her gleaming red hair. Impressionism throughout his long life
The long dark shadow in the foreground without deviating, and he was a great
accentuates the brilliance of the light, source of stimulation to others in the
especially where it edges the white skirts group in the face of poverty and endless
 :

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) cafes, and latterly nudes, were his prin- old windmill, was a favourite gathering
cipal subjects, and their warmth and place for flirting, drinking grenadine,
Le Moulin de la charm have made him one of the best- eating the galettes or pancakes from which
loved of all the Impressionists. it took its name, and waltzing on Sunday
Galette (1876)
The attraction of Le Moulin de la afternoons. Renoir took his canvas there

Jeu de Paume, The Louvre, Paris Galette is largely the result of Renoirs every week, and painted the picture on the
preoccupation with a technical problem spot. His friends and regular models
Renoir came from a poor Parisian family - the portrayal of dappled sunlight filtering posed for most of the figures. He has
his father was a tailor, his mother a through trees and illuminating the danc- captured delightfully the atmosphere of
seamstress - and by the age of thirteen he ing, chattering figures underneath, and he gentle gaiety and the soft shimmering
was at work in a factory, painting decora- has mastered it with a wonderful delicacy. effects of summer afternoon light.
tions on to china and porcelain. Un- He was fascinated by the pearly tints of
doubtedly the use of clear, light colours in female flesh, and frequently used this
this work was a permanent influence on colour scheme of pinks and blues to
him. accentuate the softness and clarity of skin
The encouragement of Monet, and the tones. The play of light and shade on the
resilience of his own cheerful nature, girls dresses and hair, and on the mens

sustained through periods of

Renoir straw hats and dark jackets, softens the
appalling He seems to have
poverty. outlines of the figures and blends them
endured all his hardships with optimism, with their surroundings and the shadows
and his paintings reveal none of the on the ground, so that a haze of diff used
problems of his life. Groups of people in colour fills the entire canvas.
riverside landscapes, dance-halls and This cafe in Montmartre, housed in an right Detail from Le Moulin de la Galette

90
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)
The Sleeping Gipsy (i897 )
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Le Douanier Rousseau was an untrained
amateur who gained his nickname because
he began to paint while working as an
official in the Paris customs service. He
had previously served as a bandsman in
the army, and said that he owed the exotic
Mexico
settings of his paintings to a trip to
with the army of Napoleon in. seems
It
more likely that they were derived from
his studies of plant and animal life in the
Paris Botanical Gardens. He developed
direct and naive style of painting, using
year at the Salon des Independants, where positiveand sharply defined in simplified,
artists could have their work hung with- primitive outlines. The power of these
out the barrier of selection by a com- clear colours and outlines creates an
mittee. Not everyone took him seriously atmosphere of haunting stillness. The
to begin with, but he believed in his talent, empty landscape and its unlikely in-
and so did many of his fellow artists. (In habitants are part of another world,
1908 Picasso gave a famous banquet in his surrounded with mystery, where normal
honour in his own studio.) Now he is one expectations and reactions no longer
of the very few so-called primitive (that apply. This sense of magic is one of the
is, unschooled) painters whose work is in constant features of Rousseaus very
the great museum collections. recognizable style.
The Sleeping Gipsy is haunting
a
picture of a girl asleep in a moonlit desert.
Beside her is a mandolin and a water jug,
and in her hand a walking stick. A calm
and curious lion, silhouetted against the
a moonlight, bends its head to investigate.
It appears to offer no threat to the girl, and

flat bright colour, which disguised a she sleeps peacefully on the sand dune
sophisticated technique. His pictures of unaware of its presence. Both the lion and
luxuriant jungle vegetation often appear the gipsy have a defencelessness and
quite straightforward, but their atmos- innocence that is strange and touching.
phere of mystery and secretiveness is The flat intense blue of the sky and the
created by a composition of intricate and vibrant stripes of the girls dress are direct
complex patterns. and striking in the brilliant light of the full
From 1886 he exhibited almost every moon. Each element of the painting is

92
Thomas Eakins ( 1 844- 1916)
The Biglin Brothers
Racing (c.i873 )
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Thomas Eakins one of the best-known
is
painters of American life. He travelled to
Europe as a young man and studied art in
Spain, Italy, Germany and France. In
1870 he returned to his native Phila-
delphia and was never to leave America
again.
The goal of his art was realism, and
among the painters he most admired were
the Spaniards Ribera and Velazquez, both
supreme realists. As Eakins expressed it,
he wanted to show what oclock it is,
afternoon or morning, winter or summer,
and what kind of people are there, what
they are doing, and why they are doing it.
He believed that the artist must be faithful
to nature, but not simply copy life; he
must attempt to re-create nature and life
through his own understanding of what The fast-running river with its spark-
he saw. ling reflections, the sharp horizontal slice
On his return from Europe Eakins of the boat skimming the surface, the
produced a number of paintings on the zigzags formed by the two men leaning
theme of outdoor life: hunting, swim- forward while their oars touch the water,
ming, sailing and rowing. Rowing was a all imply a rapid gliding movement. The
popular sport on the Schuykill River in composition itself, with both ends of the
Philadelphia, the scene of the Biglin long, sleek boat dissected by the sides of
brothers race.John and Barney Biglin the painting, adds to the feeling of speed.
were professional oarsmen, and Eakins The two brothers, in their bright white
painted them several times. shirts and racy blue bandannas, are a
He generally worked in oils in his superbly co-ordinated team. Eakins has
studio from notes and sketches made on captured a moment of control and physi-
the spot. He was interested in photo- cal effort, which the spectator can
in
graphy, then in its early stages of develop- actually see the perfect rhythm achieved
ment, and used it as a reference for by the skill of the two oarsmen. It is an
paintings such as this, where quick example of harmony and collaboration
movement is arrested. Eakins was also between two professionals, depicted with
fascinated by mathematics, and would such freshness and vigour that we feel as if
have employed it here to work out the scene is taking place before our eyes.
problems of perspective, and the most
convincing way of indicating the ripples
on the waters surface. He made little
models of the figures and the boat, and put
them out in the daylight to catch the exact
variations of colour and lighting.
93
**/

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) tortured by anxieties and self-doubts. the composition together. The artist
This troubled, searching picture reflects himself considered this painting to be his
his state of mind and sums up his thoughts masterpiece. combines
Where do come from ?
roe It his brilliant,

about life before his attempted suicide. It heightened colours and dramatic imagery
What are we? Where are is the largest painting Gauguin ever with a passionate expression of his inner
produced (over twelve wide and some thoughts and feelings about the meaning
we going? (i897 ) feet
four-and-a-half feet high), and he finished of life.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston it month, working day and night at
in a
high pitch. It was not meant to depict a
The French painter Paul Gauguin led an real scene, but to reveal the world of the
unsettled and stormy life, and his dra- mind.
matic story has been as much the subject The painting shows a mysterious
of novels and films as his work has been region filled with intense, thoughtful,
analyzed by art historians. He was des- monumental figures. In the centre a
cended on his mothers side from a young man plucks a ripe from the
fruit
Spanish-Peruvian family, from whom he tree above his head on the right are young
;

inherited his independent spirit, fierce people with a baby; and on the left an old
pride and restless fiery temperament. woman crouches waiting for death. The
He did not begin to paint until his painting moves from infancy to old age,
twenties, but in 1873 Gauguin gave up his and from birth to death ;
and at the back a
business career and stable, bourgeois exis- stone idol, its expression enigmatic, raises
tence,abandoned his wife and five child- its hands in benediction.
ren,and devoted all his energies to art. Gauguin believed that the universal
His restlessness and need for an escape force of nature could be expressed
from conventions took him to Martinique through the vibrations of colour. The
and, in 1891, to Tahiti, where his work landscape elements are shown in the vivid
began to develop the features for which he dark purples, blues and greens of the
is best known: simplified figures, clear paintings tropical background, and they
outlines, rich colour patterns and exotic seem to throb with the energy of life. The
tropical settings. His new life brought him plants are like airborne snakes, curved, RIGHT Detail from Where do we come from? What
no real happiness, however, and he was sinuous, binding the various features of are we? Where are we going?

94
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Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) large number of magnificent and im- colour and fast and furious brushwork,
portant paintings and drawings; yet he with its and
characteristic short strokes
Starry Night ,
also abandoned himself to drink, despair, swirls of paint. But the painting has too
and the violent expression of his personal the energy and vigour which were an
Saint-Remy (June 1889)
feelings. He mutilated himself by cutting essential part of van Goghs temperament

The Museum of Modern Art, New York off his ear, and finally committed suicide. and art.

Most of his short life was spent in of a sense of joy and under-
It is full

Van Gogh was probably the greatest
Dutch artist after Rembrandt. He was a
bitterly unhappy and lonely man, and we
know a good deal about his inner life as a
result of a massive, stirring
moving autobiography in
hundreds of letters written to his brother
Theo. These described how his paintings
Holland, and his paintings of Dutch standing of the relationship between the
peasants are characterized by heavy dark world we know on earth and the vast
colour; but in 1886 he joined his brother expanses of the universe. The cypresses,
Theo where he was influenced by
in Paris, familiar features in his landscapes, tower
and deeply the Impressionists and his entire colour against the deep blue of the night sky,
the form of range broadened and lightened. In 1888 with its moon and eleven
sun and crescent
he moved to Arles in the South of France, stars whirling in space. There are lights in
and his work became increasingly vivid all the village houses, and a church at the

and drawings attempted to give shape to and passionate as his mental state de- centre whose central spire reaches up to
his feelings; they were cries of anguish in teriorated. He suffered from fits, and was the sky above the distant hills. The eleven
his passionate and ultimately destructive eventually admitted to an asylum at Saint- stars are other worlds continuing into
search for self-knowledge. Remy. He was allowed freedom to paint, infinity and dwarfing our own planet, yet
He was a man of deep religious belief, however, and in his clear periods was still the village lights and the church link the
the son of a minister, and he was both lay productive, but it was there in 1890 that earth with them, emphasizing that it is

preacher and missionary in a coal-mining he eventually shot himself. part of the same immense an
creation. It is

district of Belgium before he took up In Starry Night it is easy to see the intensely religious picture, painted with
painting. His character is full of contra- turbulence of his unbalanced and tor- an almost fanatical fervour, and its
dictions: his dedication has resulted in a mented personality behind the vibrant strength and energy are electrifying.

96
Georges Seurat (1859-91) fully to develop in his later work. His small paintings and ten drawings before
pointillist theory was not entirely formed putting together this formal and precise
The Bathers , when he painted it, and he later added composition. It now seems as if the

Asnieres (1883-4)
The National Gallery, London
Georges Seurats brief life included a
short academic art training in Paris, a year
of military service, and a decade of intense
work and artistic investigation. He died
when he was thirty-two, but by then he
had produced a handful of masterpieces
which reveal his intelligent and rational
approach to the problems of colour and
light. He wanted to be able to apply a
scientific system to the methods of the
Impressionists, and he evolved a new
technique which came to be known as
Pointillism, in which he applied the paint
dots of colour in certain areas to heighten arrangement was inevitable: the placing
their intensity, but the principles behind of the figures, the spaces between them,
his colour analysis are already evident. and even the points of colour on each fine
His aim was to achieve the exact interplay blade of grass are essential parts of the
of colour and light in the open air, and, to carefully calculated scheme.
this end, each area of shadow was broken Seurats early work was received with
down complementary colours of
into the consternation and criticism, but for the
the surrounding areas of light, and every last five years of his life he found himself
element in the painting - the grass, the the centre of a cult, and his effect on
water, the flesh tones - was made up of modern art has been considerable.
colour reflected from the objects next to it.
There is something of the Impressionist
style in the brushwork and the effects of
light; but Seurat conveys not so much the
light-heartedness to be found in their
work but more the dignity and solemnity
of everyday life.

in small dots of different colours which He was equally absorbed in the study of
blend in the eye of the spectator rather composition, and his major paintings and
than on the canvas. small landscapes are the results of ex-
Seurat combined several techniques in tremely careful preparation. For The
The Bathers as well as the features he was Bathers he made no less than fourteen

97
BELOW destructive creatures, in spite of or ofhow he came to invent the image of The
perhaps because of his extended love Scream. He was taking a walk one
Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
affairs. evening, feeling tired and ill, and in this
Munch was an Expressionist painter: mood observed the sun setting over the
The Scream (1893)
one who deliberately rejects fidelity to seaand the clouds burning fiery-red. He
The National Gallery, Oslo nature, which the Impressionists had was possessed by a consuming fear, and
striven for, in favour of a simplified and felt in the fibres of his being a loud,
The Scream is one of the most disturbing emphatic use of line and colour which unending scream piercing nature. The
and famous paintings of modern times. carries great emotional impact. It was a painting that resulted is one of a cycle of
Munchs mother died when he was only movement which took strongest hold in pictures Munch called The Frieze of Life
five, and his beloved sister eleven years Germany and Northern Europe at the in which he revealed his deepest feelings
later, and these two tragic events in his start of this century, and Munch was one about life, love and death. Through them
early life affected his psychological health. of its founders. The darkest recesses of his all runs the undulating line of the shore
Ill as a child, he had several nervous emotional life were his subject. He said, and the waves of the sea.
collapses as an adult, and in 1908-9 was Art is the opposite of Nature. A work of
The face is transfixed and frozen,
one of the first people to be treated with art can only come from inside a person. contorted in a dreadful, anguished scream
electric shock therapy. He was out- Art is the shape of the picture fashioned of fear and pain, and the sunset a fiery
standingly good-looking, drank far too through the nerves, heart, brain and eye of blood-red, like the sunset that inspired it.

much, never married, and seems at times
to have regarded women as devouring,
a man. The rough paint flow across the
swirls of
Munch has left us an exact description painting as though they are about to
engulf the foreground figure. Behind are
two mysterious people: perhaps they
stand for approaching death. Man at the
mercy of terrible forces beyond his
control, forces within himself maybe, is
exposed in this strange, powerful and
unnerving painting.

RIGHT

Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec (1864-1901)

At the Moulin
Rouge (1892)

The Art Institute of Chicago

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was the son

of a French aristocrat. As the result of two
accidents as a boy, in which he broke first
one leg and then the other, he was
crippled for life: his legs never grew
normally, and he became a grotesque
body of an adult and the
figure with the
legs of a child. He began to paint during
the periods of convalescence from his
accidents, and went on to study art in
Paris. His physical disability had had a
psychological effect on him too, and he led
a decadent life, seeking the company of
people who would accept him without
discomfort. He mixed with singers, dan-
cers and prostitutes, entertainers of the
music hall, the circus and the cabaret with
whom he felt at ease. These people and arranged in an apparently accidental way, them is the Spanish dancer La Macarona,
other artists formed the subject matter of but the painting is in fact made up of her bright red lips in a rather jaded smile.
his art. precise diagonals formed by the table, the The artist himself can be seen at the back,
He had an infallible eye for design, a balustrade on the left and the planks on his top hat barely reaching the shoulder of
conveying movement and atmos-
gift for the floor. The brilliant hennaed hair of the his cousin next to him; to the right a
phere in a few rapid strokes, and he woman with her back to us is echoed famous dancer at Moulin Rouge
the
recorded what he saw without implication throughout the composition, so that known as La Goulue (The Glutton)
of any kind. colour as well as line unifies the picture; arranges her hair.
At the Moulin Rouge shows his world, she also provides a striking focal point. There is a feeling of continuous ac-
unique and full of gossip. The Moulin In the foreground a woman stares out at tivity, as if the artist actually is part of the

Rouge (where the can-can was made us, her face mask-like under heavy scene he has painted, and the movement
famous) was a music hall at the centre of makeup. She is only partially visible, as if in the picture is around him.
going on all

Bohemian life in Montmartre, and
Toulouse-Lautrec, initially through the
medium of posters, made many of its stars
immortal, and made his name as a painter.
The inhabitants of the room are
her movement has been caught as it would Mirrors reflect the crowded, smoky,
be in a photograph. Lautrecs friends sit slightly out-of-focus haze of the room,
drinking absinthe (a powerful liqueur accentuating the life and the atmosphere
which was popular in their circle) and of the place which Lautrec has caught
talking at the table in the centre. Amongst vividly.

99
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) work. In some of his interiors there are no the window, and they are remarkable for
people; he concentrates simply on the the way they intensify each other as blue
Dining Room on the objects of domestic life. In others a turns to green, violet to blue, orange to
woman sleeping, dressing or bathing, or yellow, scarlet to turquoise.
Guvden (1934-5) a family
is

is gathered round a table in a The vertical lines of the walls and

The Guggenheim Museum, New York peaceful room. window and the horizontals of the table
Dining Room on the Garden is a scene and sky-line accentuate the feeling of
After three years of studying law, Pierre from a seaside villa where Bonnard and order and stability. On the tables tip-
Bonnard entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts his family spent the summer of 1934. The tilted surface are plates of fruit, jugs,
in Paris. He designed for the theatre, and woman, painted three-quarter length in boxes, a jam-pot, everyday items that
was a superb graphic illustrator and elegant dark clothes, her figure anchoring imply an ordinary life, but one full of deep
printmaker, but it is above all the subject the composition, is his beloved wife contentment and joy.
matter he chooses for his paintings - quiet Marthe.
interiors and intimate family life - and his The painting glows with clear bright
dazzling patterns of colour that are the colours both in the room and in the view
most outstanding characteristics of his of the garden, the sea and the sky through

100
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Vuillards lifelong choice of subject woman in a blue robe with her young
matter. His work is closely linked with child in her arms - emerge from a
Mother and Child (c.i899 ) that of his friend Bonnard, and like kaleidoscope of brilliant, glowing colour
Bonnard he was a painter of family scenes that fills the room. The furniture, the
The Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery
and intimate domestic life. He painted bedspread and the picture on the wall
people in drawing-rooms and bedrooms, reflect the light and heighten the dazzling
Edouard Vuillard spent practically all his at dinner parties, in private gardens and effects of the colours around them.
life in Paris. He was the son of an army public parks. Moments of affection, The womans face is turned towards
officer and expected to become a soldier conversation and rest are depicted in flat her wide-eyed rosy-cheeked baby. The
too, but he developed an interest in patterns of brilliant colour, worked to- warmth of the colours and the close-knit
painting when he was at school and went gether so that the whole composition is patterning of the entire composition
on to study at the Academie Julien. united like a mosaic. Vuillard sketched reveal the love as well as the physical bond
When his father died, his mother, constantly, and continually photographed between them.
whose own family were in the textile his friends; these visual diaries provided
business, turned to dressmaking to sup- him with relaxed, informal references for
port her children, and this domestic many of his paintings.
feminine atmosphere no doubt influenced In Mother and Child the two figures - a

101
 )

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) particularly after a visit to the great the background of his own painting
Islamic exposition in Munich in 1910. Bonheur de vivre. 1909 was the year
DcLTlCC ( I ) ( igog This influence can be seen in the pure, Diaghilev and the Russian ballet arrived
contrasting colours and shapes of most of in Paris, and dance was a topical subject.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York his work. He turned his talent to sculpture The figures are dancing on a hill (a
and printmaking, books, murals and traditional site for ancient mystic rites and
Matisse had an orderly and brilliant designs for the theatre as well as painting. ceremonies), but it is as if they are afloat in
academic mind; he would probably have His subjects were mainly domestic the blazing blue sky, their feet barely
been a lawyer if he had not turned to interiors, scenes framed by windows, and touching the ground.
painting to amuse himself during a period - above all - the female form. He said, Their five naked bodies, linked in a
of convalescence from appendicitis. As a What interests me most is neither still life circle, are painted in clear flat colour
result, the world of art gained one of its nor landscape, but the human figure. It is without shadows, and the simplified
most outstanding and admired figures of through it that I best succeed in ex- outlines of the figures stand out very
the twentieth century. pressing the almost religious feeling I strongly against the background. They are
What began as a diversion for Matisse have towards life. drawn without detail, but the movement
became an obsession, and he gave up his Dance and Music were two decorative of their limbs and twisting bodies is
legal training and joined the studio of panels produced for the Russian collector realistic and full of life. The vibrant blue
Gustave Moreau in Paris. He was in- Sergei Shchukin, which explains why and green of the sky and the grass are
fluenced by the Impressionists, and they are now, after confiscation from perfectly balanced and extraordinarily
particularly by the work of Cezanne. But private ownership, in the Russian state intense. The total effect of this striking
he broke away from their gentle studies in collections. But Matisse had initially painting one of primitive joy and
is

light, and by 1905 had become the leader produced for Shchukins inspection an- exhilaration, communicating the joy
of a group of artists known as Les Fauves, other full-scale version of Dance - over Matisse derived from brilliant colour and
the wild beasts, because of their use of eight-and-a-half feet high and nearly dramatic forms.
violent explosive colour and aggressively thirteen feet wide - and this is the one that
rough paint textures. He was also much is now in the Museum of Modern Art in
drawn to the formality, the inventive New York. In it Matisse probably used as
patterns and the colours of Islamic art, his starting point a ring of dancers from

102
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) artistsworkshop which provided mural Against an enormous golden sky a man
decorations for public buildings and and a woman naked under
are embracing,
The KlSS (igoy-8) private houses. By 1898 he was both their richly patterned cloaks. The mans
founder member and president of a newly head is garlanded and the womans red
Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna
formed artists society, the Vienna hair adorned with star-like flowers; his
Secession, and had embarked on an cloak is decorated with strong vertical
Klimt lived and worked in a scandalous intellectually fashionable career. His later rectangles, and hers with circular flower
city at a scandalous time: Vienna in the style was much influenced by a visit he forms, to accentuate their sexuality. They
late nineteenth century. It was a hothouse paid in 1903 to Ravenna, where he was are sinking together on to a carpet of
of creative activity, producing the de- dazzled by the ancient mosaics which flowers, and the womans eyes are closed
liciously amorous operas of Richard decorate the churches. This is evident in in ecstasy as he kisses her. She is
Strauss, the salacious witty plays of the rich ornament and intricately worked supported by his arms, her hand resting
Arthur Schnitzler, and a new wave in art small areas in his pictures which are lightly on his neck, only her toes stretched
and architecture called Jugendstil linked to form complex, tightly-knit to balance her, and to increase the erotic
(Young Style) a variant of Art Nouveau. patterns. tension of the painting.
All thiscame together with a new sexual Klimt was naturally a silent man, but
freedom and an emphasis on the female he expressed himself eloquently through
form to produce the highly erotic work of He never married, but he adored
his art.
Gustav Klimt. women and often painted them. The Kiss ,

He was the son of a gold and silver hismost famous painting, was shown in
engraver, and this influence can be seen in 1908 at a major exhibition in Vienna, and,
his craftsmanship, and in his extensive use in spite of its suggestiveness, it was
of gold. He set up a highly successful bought by the Austrian government.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) 1904 had settled in France, where he sculpture, print-making and
painting,
spent the rest of his life. ceramics. Over of volumes have
a score
Les Demoiselles His early work is much concerned with already been published simply catalogu-
poverty. His Blue Period - showing the ing his work. He had two great strengths
iV Avignon (1906-7)
squalor of the Paris streets - produced beyond his remarkable technical expertise
The Museum of Modern Art, some of his most famous pictures, and and outstanding energy: he could assi-
New York began his immense, lifelong success. His milate with almost alarming ease the art of
personal was complicated by a series
life many other cultures and other European
The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso was of mistresses, wives and children whom artists, and combined this ability with his
probably the greatest artistic genius of the he used as subjects many times. own imagination, verve and wit to extend
twentieth century. He was first taught by All Picassos work in any style - and the scope of art. He participated in all the
his father,and showed exceptional talent there are many - isconcerned with his movements of his own time, while re-
at an early age. He exhibited and won love of life, expressed through the eternal maining individual and becoming per-
awards when still a boy, and went on to themes of birth, love, death and war. manently identified with none.
study at the academies of Barcelona and He was astoundingly productive in a Les Demoiselles d Avignon, started when
Madrid. In 1900 he visited Paris, and by variety of media and techniques drawing, : Picasso was only twenty-five, began a

104
remarkable phase in his work. Artistic
innovations do not come about in a
vacuum Picasso drew on the influence of
:

African sculpture and the work of

Cezanne and Matisse in this painting, and
it is therefore a meeting place for the

traditions of primitive and contemporary

art, disrupting both to create something

new and disturbing. The harsh angularity

and distortion of the almost naked figures,
heralding the movement known as
Cubism, are as disconcerting and alarm-
ing now as they were for Picassos
astonished fellow artists.

The title of the painting comes from a

street in the red-light district of
Barcelona, and the five statuesque females
are presumably prostitutes, their gestures
aping those of sexual invitation. Two
women towards us but
in the centre face
their noses are painted in profile; two
others wear frightening masks, one of
them shown both full face and in profile
although the woman has her back to us. As
became typical of Cubist paintings, the
colours are flat and unemphatic, limited to
flesh tones and a muted background, with
the result that the firm, deliberate outlines
dominate the painting. The five women
are simultaneously passive objects and
aggressive predators, and the painting has
a mood of restlessness and violence, and a
strange primitive energy. Its influence has
been vast, and it has become one of the
most famous works of art of this century.

RIGHT After the First World War Braques the objects as painting allowed. He was
style developed in the direction he was to especially drawn to musical instruments,
Georges Braque (1882-1963)
life. He produced
follow for the rest of his which involve the use of other senses to
large and figure compositions
still-life bring them to life.
Violin and Palette (1909-10)
with perfect harmony of colour and Here almost everything is distorted,
The Guggenheim Museum, New York design, incorporating many of the aims of except the nail on which the palette hangs
Cubism. He was the first artist to have his in the top left corner, and the fact that the

Georges Braque was the son of a house- work exhibited at the Louvre in his own nail and its shadow are painted with
painter and amateur artist. He was first lifetime. conventional emphasizes the
realism
apprenticed to a decorator at Le Havre, Violin and Palette reveals that the distortion of the other objects. Yet this
but soon went to Paris, where he fell depiction of an object can be highly strange technique does bring us into
under the spell of Cezanne and Picasso. It complicated. The Cubists combined closer contact with them by drawing our
was a period of intense activity and several different aspects of an article in attention to every angle and facet. We
inventiveness in Paris, and Braque be- one painting, in order to give as full a understand more about them as a result of
came one of the leaders of a new group description of as possible. Whereas a
it their fragmentation, and begin to see
with new ideas and new ways of express- painting and hangs in one place, in
is static them with greater insight.
ing them. He was one of the innovators of life we move about and have different

collage; and he turned with Picasso to the vantage points, and Braque wanted to
depiction of still life, landscape and show not only three-dimensionality on his
portraits in the manner which came to be flat painted surface, but also the feeling of
known as Cubism. Many people believe it movement which exists in life. Painting
to have been the most influential move- facets and fragments of objects was, in his

ment in modern art. own words, a means of getting as close to

105
Edward Hopper (1882-1967) the atmosphere of depression and anxiety say to one another. Hoppers people are
at the start of the Second World War. The passive; they seem resigned and desolate,
Nighthawks (i 942 ) clothes of the people at the all-night unable or unwilling to communicate. The
lunch counter and the lettering outside, hard light gleams on two large metal
The Art Institute of Chicago as well as the mood of the painting, are coffee urns, making them look strangely
strongly evocative of the 1930s and early dramatic and menacing.
Edward Hopper was one of the pioneers 40s. The upper windows have their blinds The paint is applied quite thickly, and
of twentieth-century American realism. halfway down, the windows of the shops the intense, bitter colours reflect the glare.
He painted scenes from the country of are bare, and the city is silent. A harsh The composition is made up of simple,
New England and the city of New York: fluorescent light ruthlessly exposes the stark horizontal and vertical shapes,
backwater scenes - old shabby houses, a small group of people as though they are which emphasize the bleakness of the
few people waiting at a cinema, a street on a stage, and floods through the glass environment, and make the people seem
early on a Sunday morning or a lonely walls on to an empty street, its effect more vulnerable.
garage at dusk on a country road. He heightened by the surrounding darkness. Hopper thought of his art as intimate
painted an America of loneliness and A man is seated with his back towards transcriptions from nature, and he denied
isolation, whose citizens lead lives of us, a little hunched up, as though he is any social message or purpose, but he
spiritual poverty, and he found a sad, drawing comfort from a drink in front of conveys through his paintings such a deep
touching beauty in their desperation. him. A couple wait to be served; they are understanding of human isolation that we
The city scene Nighthawks is filled with together, but they appear to have little to can identify with this silent group.

106
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)

Woman with a Fan (i 9 i 9 )

Le Musee dArt Moderne

de la Ville de Paris

Amedeo Modiglianis short and tragic life

contributed his own particular vision of

women to the worlds art.
A member of an Italian-Jewish banking
family, he was born in Leghorn, and
studied art in Italy before going to Paris in
1906. He was fond of
good-looking,
women, and addicted drugs and to
alcohol. He said, I am going to drink
myself dead, and it was drink and drugs,
combined with tuberculosis, which killed
him at the age of thirty-six.
He spent his adult life in Paris, then
the art capital of the world, and lived a
poverty-stricken existence with his artist
friends, who were equally young and
struggling. He carved in stone for several
years as well as painting, and turned to
painting exclusively in about 1915;
neither his health nor his finances per-
mitted further sculpture. His work con-
sists almost exclusively of portraits, and

they are so skilled that although the

exaggerations of his style are always
recognizable, so is the individuality of
each sitter.

The face of a Modigliani woman is a

pronounced oval, set aslant on a long neck
which emerges from sloping shoulders.
The almond-shaped eyes are often all
pupil, the nose long and splayed out at the
end, reminiscent of noses in African art.
The mouth is small and pinched. Yet the
results, in spite of these unpromising
ingredients, are strong and sensual and
often very graceful. His colour range was
deliberately limited; he managed to
extract extraordinary expressiveness from
a range of reds, blacks and flesh tints.
In Woman with a Fan thought to be a ,

portrait of a Polish woman Lunia

Czechowska, all these features are pre-
sent. The body is elongated, and her
curving shape is as formal and poised as a
lily. Her fan is held correctly and ele-
gantly, its angled markings echoing the
sharp indentations in her flesh which
indicate Modiglianis interest in the use of
line. Her face is smoothly modelled,
almost like a piece of china. The result is

wistful, sad and beguiling, typical of

this artists unique and distinctive work.

107
BELOW became painters, and Marcel Duchamp Cubism. Finally he branched out into
developed into one of the most influential new regions, and became one of
entirely
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
and puzzling figures of modern art. the leaders of the anti-art movement
He studied art in Paris, and supported known Dada, which was intended to
as
Nude Descending a himself in France and America by giving outrage and scandalize the public and the
Staircase ( 2 ) (i 9 i 2 ) French lessons, illustrating, designing, critics, to promote anarchy, and to dispel

and working as a librarian. His early some of the preciousness of the Fine
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
paintings were fairly conventional and he Arts. One example of this is Duchamps
Duchamp was born in France, the son of a experimented with all the styles which copy of the Mona Lisa, adorned with a
notary who disapproved of the artistic had recently preceded him: Impression- moustache.
tendencies of his children: four of them ism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and His enquiries into the nature of art were
serious and constructive. His revolution-
ary ideas, and his invention of the concept
of the ready-made - in which ordinary
everyday objects already in existence
(usually manufactured) are exhibited as
art - have caused considerable con-
troversy, but they have opened our eyes to
new possibilities. Duchamp was highly
provocative and contradictory in his ideas
and attitudes, declaring What the artist
chooses to be art is art; I have forced
myself to contradict myself in order to
avoid conforming to my own taste; It is
the spectators who make the pictures.
Enigmatic, elegant, witty and brilliant as
he was, Duchamp could never resist this
kind of teasing, but it was partly intended
asan encouragement to other artists to be
open-minded and adventurous.
One of his last conventional paintings,
Nude descending a Staircase, caused a
scandal at the great show of advanced art
at the Armoury in New York. The
painting reveals Duchamps interest in
photography, in which the various stages
of an action could be arrested in a series of
still photographs. He transferred this
technique to canvas by means of a
succession of outlines of a figure, used to
create an illusion of continuous move-
ment. The show
dotted lines in the centre
the swinging movement of the pelvis. By
examining a single figure from different
angles, and simultaneously suggesting
movement, Duchamp was adapting the
principles of Cubism to suit his own
individual ideas. He also used their
restricted palette of greys and browns in
order to concentrate the eye more closely
on line and structure.
This impressive and elegant painting is

typical of the spirit of intelligent investi-

gation that characterized his work.
ABOVE The majority of his paintings weave them a gigantic head is peeping out. A
memories of his Russian up-bringing with young man marches up a hill, his farm
Marc Chagall (b. 1887)
fantasies, folk tales and fables others have
;
implement on his shoulder, and a village
religious subjects, and show the impor- girl, upside down, beckons him on.
I and the Village (i 9 n) tance he attaches to Jewish beliefs and The elements of the painting are not
The Museum of Modern Art, New York traditions. clearly related, and this dream-like un-
His figures are often adrift in space in a reality was have a lasting influence on
to
Marc Chagall, artist, painter, print- world that seems naive, but in fact it is modern The glowing colours,
painting.
maker, designer of sets for ballet, dec- carefully constructed to express his ideas soft and transparent, fill the scene with a
orative work for public buildings and about and religion. His use of colour is
life wistful charm, and the simple images are
magnificent stained glass, has created a brilliant and highly individual. gay and witty. Chagall must have immer-
body of work which is among the best- / and the Village was painted in Paris in sed himself in the past to produce this
loved of the twentieth century. the course of his first prolonged stay, but nostalgic vision of the village and the
He trained in Russia, but in 1910 was it is full of images from the Russian village people who meant so much to him.
sent by a benefactor to study in France, in which he was brought up. It is a
where he absorbed the richly creative youthful painting, experimental and
atmosphere of Paris at the time. He daring.
returned to Russia, married his childhood As if in a dream, a young man offers a
sweetheart, and supervised an art insti- bunch of flowers to a beautiful cow, while
tution untilit became apparent that his art a milkmaid - his sweetheart perhaps - is
was unacceptable to the regime. He milking another cow, superimposed in
returned to France, and most of his life miniature. At the top of the painting are
since has been spent there. the houses of the village; and from one of
 i

BELOW wife Georgette by designing wallpaper With the dream-like clarity and enormous
and commercial catalogues. In the 1920s inventiveness typical of the movement,
Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
he began to paint full time, and during a Magritte combines ordinary everyday
few tremendously productive periods he objects in an incongruous and startling
Time Transfixed ( 939 ) produced a painting a day. way funny and
that is often always
The Art Institute of Chicago He spent five years in Paris from surprising. He worked dead- in a bland,
1927-32, and joined a group of painters pan manner, the paint smooth and dry-
Rene Magritte was the son of a Belgian who came to be known as the Surrealists. looking, the colours usually dull browns,
businessman, and the eldest of three The movement developed from Dada, blues and greys, which makes the strange
brothers. Most of his life was spent in and its object was to explore the sub- mixtures of unrelated objects seem nor-
Brussels, where he studied for several conscious mind, and provoke an emo- mal and convincing, and the effect there-
years at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, tional and instinctive reaction to the fore even more disconcerting.
and for a while supported himself and his world that was free from preconceptions. Most of Magrittes work was the result
of a long period of reflection, but Time
Transfixed appeared to him spon-
taneously, like a sudden vision. It shows a
mantelpiece, as anonymous and simple as
most of the elements in his paintings, with
empty candlesticks and a clock reflected in
a large mirror. From the empty fireplace
a locomotive engine rushes into the room,
smoke and steam pouring up the chimney
from its funnel.
A train is associated in our minds with
motion, and a clock is of course the
emblem of time, but they are used here in
a sort of double bluff as a : reminder of life
rushing on and as an implication, because
a painting can only capture a split second,
of time and movement transfixed. The
painting has a logic of own, and a its

distorted connection with reality, which

makes it seem as if the impossible could
easilyhappen.
Anunnerving tension is set up when
one is faced with something unexpected,
and Magritte, by creating an Alice in
Wonderland world of his own inventing,
full of illusions and surprises, jars us out

of our preconceptions about the world we

take for granted.

RIGHT

Salvador Dali (b. 1904)

The Persistence of
Memory (i 93 i)

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Perhaps the most spectacular personality

Salvador
in twentieth-century painting is
Dali. He was born in the Catalan region
of Spain, and seventeen went to Madrid
at

to study at the School of Fine Arts. He

1 10
 1

was suspended and finally expelled for his has defined the aims of Surrealism more tongue, and theymay have some erotic
outrageous behaviour and refusal to precisely than any other artist. The work symbolism. Dali himself has character-
conform. He moved to Paris, where he of Magritte is intellectual and turns istically said that the idea came to him
joined and became one of the leaders of physical laws upside down
an to express when he was eating a ripe Camembert
the Surrealist Movement, and as a result idea Dali appeals directly to the emotions
;
cheese. His autobiography Diary of a
of his inventive genius and his flair for foran instinctive spontaneous reaction, Genius tells us that he experienced

personal publicity he has become its most and he does it with enormous technical hallucinations in his childhood; as the
famous representative. skill and originality. title of the painting suggests, perhaps the
His egotism, narcissism and showman- The Persistence of Memory is an early subject was inspired by persistent visions
ship have all contributed to the exotic work, and one of his most fascinating. In a and memories from the past.
legend which surrounds him. (On the flat deserted landscape, probably based on Like a dream, the picture is probably
occasion of the International Surrealist the coast of Catalonia, Dali has created the impossible fully to explain. Although
Exhibition in London in 1936, Dali weird images of three limp watches. They harmless, its images are threatening
lectured in a complete deep-sea diving- are draped like rubber or plasticine : one and disturbing, both because they are
suit.) In 1937 he was expelled from the from a branch of a dead tree growing out unexpected and because they are so
Surrealist Movement, and left for of a wooden platform; another, with a fly convincingly real. Dalis exaggeratedly
America. Since then he has moved from on the glass, over the edge of the platform precise drawing and brushwork and
one extreme to another: from embracing itself; and over what might
a third folded transparently clear colours in the brilliant
revolutionary politics and producing be a distorted head on the ground. Mediterranean light create a clinically

highly provocative work, he has turned to Glistening ants have gathered on the accurate illusion of reality, which is

religious pictures and right-wing ortho- metal back of an apparently normal alarming, amusing and brilliantly

dox views. His life and paintings have watch turned face downwards. The limp inventive.
always caused violent reactions, but he watches have been compared to the human
1 1
BELOW designed furniture, rugs and interiors, way. Behind many of his disquieting
and he also began to paint. He spent images is the distress, physical and
Francis Bacon (b. 1909)
considerable periods in Berlin and Paris, psychological, of Europe during the
the two major centres of artistic activity at Second World War.
Figure in a Figure in a Landscape is a picture of
the time, but is entirely self-taught.
Landscape ( ig 45) Two principal strands run through his Bacons early maturity, based on a
work: the disturbing unexpectedness of photograph taken of a friend dozing in a
The Tate Gallery, London Surrealism and the fervent, sometimes chair in a London park. It was painted in
destructive, emotions explored in the last year of the war the park railings
:

Francis Bacon is one of the few inter- Expressionism (see p. 98). The majority and chair have been turned into weapons;
nationally significant English painters of of his paintings are concerned with the masculine figure is headless.
this century.His parents were English, isolated human figures. Most are por- The terror Bacon portrays is heigh-
but his was a horse-trainer in
father traits, authentic if physically distorted, of tened by his smoothly confident brush-
Dublin, and Bacon was born and brought people known to Bacon, and almost all of work, sombre colours and exceptionally
up there. In the 1920s and 30s he them are represented as caged in some imaginative use of space: the central arch

1 12
opens into a black tunnel, which both BELOW Ford and Cushing, Maine. He has said
anchors the composition and suggests that that It is not the country but what he
Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917)
a void is its focal point, underlining the carries to it that makes an artist. His
mood of helplessness and anxiety. meticulous technique, depicting every-
Bacons figures are palpitating, trem-
Christina s World (i 94 8)
thing with a heightened accuracy, has led
bling beings, isolated and terrified in a The Museum of Modern Art, New York to him being called a magic- or super-
hostile environment, and they convey all realist.

the frustration, loneliness, degradation In his own country Andrew Wyeth is the In Christinas World a young woman
and brutality that exists in the modern best-known and most popular American sits with her back towards us; she is

world. His work is immensely powerful artist of this century. He was the first wearing a brilliant pink dress, which
and he is thought by most of his con- artist to appear on the cover of Time stands out against the minutely variegated
temporaries to be the greatest living magazine, his work commands high browns of the hayfield. Her arms and legs
British painter. prices, and his exhibitions have record- are emaciated as a result of polio, which in
breaking attendances. 1948 was still a terrifying and mysterious
He is the son of a popular illustrator disease from which many people died. It

N. C. Wyeth. As a result of ill health as a is no longer the familiar scourge it was

child he was educated at home at Chadds then, but the sympathy one feels for her
Ford, Pennsylvania, and taught to paint pathetic figure is instinctive and
by his father. His own son James is also a unchanging.
painter, so three generations of one family There is a bleak beauty in the country-
have now lived and painted in Wyeth side. The simple stark farm buildings

country. loom on the horizon beyond the enormous

Andrew Wyeth has travelled very little, hilly field in which the girl sits, and the

but he has explored in detail the farms, steeply sloping perspective of the painting
houses, land and people around two small gives us her particular viewpoint on life in

areas of the east coast of America : Chadds an understanding and unusual way.
 :

Jackson Pollock (1912-56) spread a length of unprimed canvas on the interpret the result in whatever way he
floor, instead of stretching it in the usual likes. It is different for each person each
Blue Poles (i 952 ) way, and tacked it to the boards. He said, time he looks at it; and this changeable
On the floor I am more at ease. I feel quality adds to energy and
its vitality.
The National Gallery of Art, Canberra nearer, more a part of the painting, since The purchase of Blue Poles by
this way I can walk round it, work from Australias relatively new National
Jackson Pollock was born on a farm in the four sides, and literally be in the Gallery was controversial the price of
:

Wyoming, and his childhood was spent painting. He abandoned the use of two million dollars was thought to be
in Arizona and California. He studied brushes, and splashed or poured the paint high. Yet Pollock made a new and
art inLos Angeles and New York, and straight on to the cloth. He wanted inventive contribution to modern art : he
worked for the Federal Arts Project, nothing to come between him and the devised a method of painting in which old
a government-funded programme for colour itself. He felt that the painting had conventions are set aside and new disci-
artists which was part of President a life of its own, and if things went well it plines imposed, and the result is spon-
Roosevelts New Deal to combat the would come through. My painting is taneous, stimulating and adventurous.
Depression. He was killed in a car direct ... I want to express my feelings
accident in his early forties, but he has left rather than illustrate them. . . . When I am
a legacy of over a thousand paintings. His painting I have a general notion as to what
subjects were abstract, and he was the I am about. I can control the flow of paint
.
greatest American exponent of Action there is no accident. . .

Painting. Pollock underwent psycho- The results are dramatic. Blue Poles ,
analysis, and his pictures seem to involve like many of his paintings, is very large.
a release of tensions, as if he is allowing Skeins and streaks of brilliant colour
things to emerge from the depths of his weave a web in which one is almost
subconscious. engulfed. There are no recognizable
His technique was unconventional : he forms depicted, and the spectator is free to

1
14
Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923) medium - the strip cartoon - he magnifies ventions to a massive size - the painting is

the dots and imitates the primary colours over thirteen feet wide by five-and-a-half
Whaam! (i 9 6 3 ) used in cheap newspaper screen-printing. feet deep - and the effects created by this
He simplifies and clarifies the sources of distortion are unusually powerful and
The Tate Gallery, London his ideas, paring them down to the bare exciting.
essentials, and transforms them into Lichtensteins methods have not been
Roy Lichtenstein is the best-known stunningly powerful images. imitated by any other major artist, but his
American Pop artist. Although he has The subject for Whaam! probably subject matter has had a strong influence
worked with a variety of materials, came from the comic Armed Forces at on modern art, and also on the com-
including enamelled metal, brass and War. Lichtenstein was amused by the mercial world which is his own starting-
plastics, he is first and foremost a painter. thought of repeating on such a vast scale point. His work is typical of the energy
His early career was spent as an engineer- its narrative theme - one aeroplane and dynamism of post-war American art.
ing draughtsman and art teacher, but he shooting down another - and using all the
made his name as an artist when he turned traditional cliches of strip cartoons: the
in 1961 to the development of his own speech bubbles, emphatic lettering with
highly individual style. It is based largely exclamation marks, spectacular stylized
on the techniques and subject matter of explosions and lurid colour.
commercial art : details taken from Since it is in two separate sections, like
advertisements for everyday objects - a part of a comic strip, the painting also
cooker with food in the oven, a foot on a harks back to medieval altarpieces, which
pedal bin, golf balls and exercise books - often consisted of two or three panels, and
all exaggerated and emphasized out of all the combination of these two incongruous
proportion to the original subject. traditions must have appealed to his sense
In his most famous technique, derived of humour.
from that popular and typically American He has blown up the cartoon con-

1
15
 i )

David Hockney (b. 1937) his friends in the last decade. The scene shutters half open, we have a view of
is a drawing-room on the first floor of houses across a Bayswater street.
Mr and Mrs Clark and a nineteenth-centuryLondon terraced It is a controlled and cool study of two

house, a cool room with an uncluttered young and successful people from the
Percy ( 970-i
modern decor. The woman standing hand world of fashion and art, the world
The Tate Gallery, London on hip by the shuttered window is Celia Hockney himself inhabits. In its own way
Birtwell, a fabric designer and the wife of it forms a link with the group portraits

The David Hockney was

British painter the dress designer Ossie Clark, who is which are so important a part of the
born in Bradford, Yorkshire, and studied sitting with his bare feet buried in the British tradition of the eighteenth and
there and at the Royal College of Art in deep pile rug on the floor. Percy, their nineteenth centuries.
London. His work is highly personal and large white cat, sits contentedly on his lap.
not always very revealing or easy to grasp. A vase of lilies, a book, a white telephone,
It has a reticence and restraint, which an art deco lamp, and a framed print by
makes it strangely elusive and intriguing. Hockney on the wall are all arranged with
He is a gifted print-maker, and he has also great precision. Their placing creates a
designed sets for opera, including perfect harmony and balance which gives
Mozarts The Magic Flute. the room its air of rather formal, calm
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy is one of a stillness. Clear daylight falls across a
series of portraits Hockney has painted of white balcony; through the window, its

1 16
 , e

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Elizabeth Falconbridge for her research assistance and Wendy Dallas for her editing

endpaper LEnseigne de Gersaint 41 The Origin of the Milky Way National 70 The Ancient of Days or God Creating the
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin Dahlem Gallery, London Universe Reproduced by permission of
half-title Turner on Varnishing Day 42 Lady Bathing with Children and the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
The Guild of St George, Ruskin Attendants National Gallery of Art, Cambridge
Collection,Department of Art History, Washington dc (Samuel H. Kress 71 The Stages oj Life Museum Bildenden
University of Reading Collection) Kunste, Leipzig
The chart on pages io-i i was drawn by 43 The Return of the Hunters 72 The Fighting Temeraire National
Michael Fry. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna London
Gallery,
12 The Rucellai Madonna Uffizi Gallery, 44 The Marriage Feast at Cana Louvre, 73 The Hay-Wain National Gallery,
Florence Paris London
13 The Lamentation Arena Chapel, Padua 45 Christ Driving the Traders from the 74 La Grande Odalisque Louvre, Paris
(Scala) Temple National Gallery, London 75 The Raft of the Medusa Louvre, Paris
14 The Annunciation Uffizi Gallery, 46 Portrait of An Unknown Man Victoria 76 Liberty Leading the People Louvre,
Florence & Albert Museum, London (Crown Paris
15 The Arnolfini Marriage National Copyright) 77 The Studio of the Painter Louvre, Paris
Gallery, London 47 Bacchus Uffizi Gallery, Florence 78 In a Shoreham Garden Victoria &
167 The Battle of San Romano National 48-9 The Descent from the Cross Cathedrale Albert Museum, Crown Copyright
Gallery, London dAnvers, Antwerp 79 The Gleaners Louvre, Paris
18 The Deposition Prado, Madrid 50 The Laughing Cavalier Reproduced by 80 Ramsgate Sands Reproduced by
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson Archives) Permission of the Trustees of the Gracious Permission of Her Majesty the
19 The Annunciation S. Marco, Florence Wallace Collection, London Queen
(Scala) 51 A Dance to the Music of Time 81 The Last of England Birmingham City
20 The Expulsion of Adam and Eve Reproduced by Permission of the Trustees Art Gallery (Weidenfeld and Nicolson
S. Maria del Carmine, Florence of the Wallace Collection, London Archives)
(Alinari) 52 Charles I with an Equerry and Page 82 Autumn Leaves Manchester City Art
21 The Baptism National Gallery, London Louvre, Paris Gallery (Weidenfeld and Nicolson
(John Gates) 53 Las Meninas Prado, Madrid Archives)
22 The Feast of the Gods National Gallery, 54 Portrait of the Artist Iveagh Bequest, 83 Garden with Trees in Blossom, Spring,
Washington DC (Widener Collection) Kenwood House, London (Cooper- Pontoise Jeu de Paume, Paris
23 The Martyrdom of St Sebastian Louvre, Bridgeman Library) 84 Le Dejeuner sur l' Herb Louvre, Paris
Paris 55 Head of a Girl Mauritshuis, The Hague 85 Le Foyer de la Danse a IOpera Jeu de
24 The Adoration of the Shepherds Uffizi 56 The Courtyard of a House in Delft Paume, Paris
Gallery, Florence National Gallery, London 86 Portrait of the Artist's Mother Louvre,
25 The Birth of Venus Uffizi Gallery, 57 The Avenue Middelharnis National
,
Paris
Florence Gallery, London 87 Breezing Up National Gallery of Art
26 An Old Man U> His Grandson Louvre, 58 The Embarkation for Cythera Louvre, Washington dc (Gift of W. L. and May
Paris Paris T. Mellon Foundation)
27 Mona Lisa Louvre, Paris 59 Kaisersaal, Episcopal Palace 88 La Montague Sainte-Victoire Courtauld
28-9 The Garden of Earthly Delights Prado, Wurzburg (A. F. Kersting) Institute Galleries, London
Madrid 60 The Harbour of San Marco with the 89 Women in a Garden Jeu de Paume, Paris
30 The Forest Fire Ashmolean Museum, Customs House from La Giudecca 90-1 Le Moulin de la Galette Jeu de Paume,
Oxford National Museum of Wales, Cardiff Paris
31 Self-Portrait Prado, Madrid 61 The Graham Children The Tate 92 The Sleeping Gipsy Museum of Modern
32 The Crucifixion from the Isenheim Gallery, London (John Webb) Art (Gift of Mrs Simon Guggenheim)
Altarpiece Colmar, France 62 The Kitchen Maid National Gallery of 93 The Biglin Brothers Racing National
33 Cupid Complaining to Venus National Art, Washington dc (Samuel H. Kress Gallery of Art Washington dc (Gift of
Gallery, London Collection) Mr and Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt
34 The Creation of Adam Sistine Chapel, 63 Reclining Girt Alte Pinakothek, Munich Whitney)
Vatican City (Scala) 64 Miss Bowles and her Dog Reproduced 94-5 Where do we come from ? What are we?
35 The Tempest Accademia, Venice by Permission of the Trustees of the Where are we going? Museum of Fine
(Cooper-Bridgeman Library) Wallace Collection, London Arts, Boston
36 St Augustine in his Study S. Giovanni 65 The Melbourne and Milbanke Families 96 Starry Night, Sainte-Remy Museum of
Augustine e Trifone, Venice (Scala) National Gallery, London Modern Art, New York (Acquired
37 The Alba Madonna National Gallery of 66 Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews National through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest)
Washington DC (Andrew W. National Gallery,
Art, Gallery, London 97 The Bathers, Asmeres
Mellon Collection) 67 The Swing Reproduced by Permission London (John Webb)
38 The Venus of Urbino Uffizi Gallery, of the Trustees of the Wallace 98 The Scream National Gallery of Art, Oslo
Florence (Scala) Collection, London 99 At the Moulin Rouge Collection of the
39 The Ambassadors National Gallery, 68 The Third of May, 1808 Prado, Madrid Art Institute of Chicago
London 69 The Death of Marat Musees Royaux 100 Dining Room on the Garden The
40 An Allegory National Gallery, London des Beaux-Arts, Brussels Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

New York (Robert E. Mates) SPADEM Guggenheim Museum, New York Institute of Chicago ADAGP Paris,
Paris, 1979 (Robert E. Mates) AD AGP Paris, 1979 1979
101 Mother and Child Glasgow Art Gallery
1
106 Nighthawks Collection of the Art hi The Persistence of Memory Museum of
SPADEM Paris, 1979 Chicago
Institute of Modern Art, New York (Given
102 Dance (1) Museum of Modern Art, (Robert E. Mates) Anonymously)
New York (Gift of Nelson 107 Woman with a Fan Musee dArt 1 12 Figure in a Landscape Tate Gallery,
A. Rockefeller in honour of Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Bulloz) London (John Webb)
Alfred H. Barr Jnr.) SPADEM Paris,
ADAGP Paris, 1979 1
13 Christinas World Museum of Modern
1979 1 08 Nude descending a Staircase (2) Art, New York (Purchase)
103 The Kiss Osterreichische Galerie, Philadelphia Museum of Art (The 1
14 Blue Poles National Gallery of Art,
Vienna (Cooper-Bridgeman Library) Louise and Walter Arensberg Canberra, Australia
104 Les Demoiselles d' Avignon Museum of Collection) ADAGP Paris, 1979 1
15 Whaam! Tate Gallery, London (John
Modern Art, New York (Acquired 109 I and the Village Museum ofModern Webb)
through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest) Art, New York (Mrs S. Guggenheim 1 16 Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy Tate
SPADEM Paris, 1979 Collection) ADAGP 1979 Paris, Gallery, London (John Webb)
105 Violin and Palette The Solomon R. 1 10 Time Transfixed Collection of the Art

The publishers are grateful to the following museums and art galleries for supplying transparencies for use in this volume:
 1 1 5

Index to Artists, Movements and Technical Terms

Action Painting, 114 Duccio di Buoninsegna, 8, 12, 14 Koella-Leenhoff, Leon, 84 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 52, 64, 66
Angelico, Fra, 19, 20 Duchamp, Marcel, 108 Rococo style and Movement, 9,
Art Nouveau, 103 Durer, Albrecht, 9, 30, 32 Lemoyne, Francois, 63 58, 59
Bacon, Francis, 1 12-13 Leonardo da Vinci, see da Vinci Romantic Movement, 9, 70, 75,
Baroque Movement, 8, 9, 45, 47, Eakins, Thomas, 93 Les Fauves group, 102 77
48 58
,
Expressionism(t), 98, 1 12 Lichtenstein, Roy, 1 1 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 81
Bellini, Gentile, 22 limning, 46 Rousseau, Henri, 92
Bellini, Giovanni, 22, 35, 36, 38 Fauvism, 108 Rubens, Sir Peter Paul, 9, 48, 52,
Bellini, Jacopo, 22 Federal Arts Project, 1
14 Magritte, Rene, 9, 1 10 58,75, 76
Blake, William, 70, 78 Fete galante 58 ,
Manet, Edouard, 9, 84-5
Bonnard, Pierre, 100, 101 Fragonard, Jean-Honore, 9, 66-7 Mannerism(t), 9, 40, 41, 45 Seurat, Georges, 97
Bosch, Hieronymus, 28-9 Fresco technique, 8, 13, 19, 20, Mantegna, Andrea, 23 Stubbs, George, 64-5
Botticelli, Sandro, 25 26, 34, 59 Martini, Simone, 14 Surrealism(ts), 9, 28, no, in,
Boucher, Francis, 9, 63, 66 Friedrich, Caspar David, 9, 70-1 Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser 1 12

Braque, Georges, 9, 88, 105 Frith, William Powell, 80 Giovanni di Mone), 8, 20

Bronzino, 9, 40 Matisse, Henri, 102, 105 tempera, 8, 26
Brown, Ford Madox, 81 Gainsborough, Thomas, 52, 66 Memmi, Lippo, 14 Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 9, 59,
Bruegel the Elder, Peter, 42-3 Gauguin, Paul, 94 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 8, 26, 63
Byzantine art, 8, 9, 12 Gericault, Theodore, 75, 76 34-5, 37, 48, 70, 75 Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti),
Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 16 Millais, Sir John Everett, 9, 81, 40-1,44
Camera obscura, 60 Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 26, 34 82 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), 35,
Canaletto, Antonio, 60-1 Giorgione, 35, 58, 74 Millet, Jean Francois, 79 38-9, 48, 74
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi Giotto di Bondone, 8, 13 Modigliani, Amedeo, 107 tondo 37
,

da, 9, 47, 48, 75
Carpaccio, Vittore, 36
Cezanne, Paul, 9, 83, 88, 102, 105
Chagall, Marc, 109
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon,
62, 66
Chiaroscuro 47, 54
,
Clouet, Francis, 42
Collage, 105
Constable, John, 73, 76
Courbet, Gustave, 77
Couture, Thomas, 84
Cranach, Hans, 32
Cranach, Lucas, 8, 32-3
Cranach the Younger, Lucas, 32
Cubism, 9, 88, 105,
Dada Movement,
1 10
Dali, Salvador, 9, 1 10-1
David, Jacques-Louis, 9, 69
da Vinci, Leonardo, 8, 26-7, 37
Degas, Hilaire Germain Edgar,
9i 83, 85
Goya, Francisco, 68
Greco, El, 45
Grunewald, Matthias, 32
Guerin, Pierre Narcisse, Baron,
75,76
Hals, Frans, 9, 50
Hilliard, Nicholas, 46
Hobbema, Meyndert,
Hockney, David, 116
Hogarth, William, 61
Holbein the Elder, Hans, 39
Holbein the Younger, Hans,
39
Homer, Winslow, 87
108 Hopper, Edward, 106
Hunt, Holman, 81
9, 108,
Impressionists, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89,
96, 97, 98, 102, 108
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-
Dominique, 74
International Surrealist
Exhibition, 1936,
1 1
Monet, Claude, 9, 83, 89, 90
Moreau, Gustave, 102
8, Morisot, Berthe, 84
Munch, Edward, 98
Neoclassicism, 9, 69
Oil-paint, 8, 14, 25
57, 66
Painters Guild, 9, 16, 24
Palmer, Samuel Joseph, 78
perspective, science of, 20
8,
Picasso, Pablo, 9, 68, 88, 104-5
Pissarro, Camille, 9, 82-3
Pointillism, 97
Pollock, Jackson, 1
14
Pontormo, Jacopo Carucci
Post-Impressionists,
Poussin, Nicolas, 50-1
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
81, 82
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio),
37, 74, 82
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de,
98-9
Turner, Joseph Mallord
William, 9, 82
Uccello, Paolo, 16
van der Goes, Hugo, 8, 24-5
van der Weyden, Rogier, 8, 18
van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 48, 52
van Eyck, Jan, 8, 14-15, 18
van Gogh, Vincent, 96
Vasari, Giorgio, 30, 34
Velazquez, Diego, 52-3, 68, 93
Vermeer, Johannes, 9, 55, 56
Vernet, Carle, 75
Veronese, Paolo, 44, 76
da, 40
Verrochio, Andrea del, 26
9, 88, 108
Vienna Secession, the, 103
Vuillard, Edouard, 101
9,
Watteau, Jean-Antoine, 9, 58-9,
8, 9, 63
Whistler, James Abbott McNeill,

de Hooch, Pieter,9, 56-7

Rembrandt van Rijn, 9, 54, 96 86-7
Delacroix, Ferdinand-Victor- Renaissance, 8, 9, 20, 25, 26, 30, Wyeth, Andrew, 1
13
JugendstiF (Young Style), 103
Eugene, 9, 76-7 34, 37,40, 45, 48
della Francesca, Piero, 20-1 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 9, 83,

di Cosimo, Piero, 30 Klimt, Gustav, 103 89,90

1 iQ
The artist at work. A rare photograph, taken in 1870, of the flamboyant Courbet, deeply
involved with his subject and dedicated, as always, to representing reality.