LITMIR.BIZ

      This large picture is generally accounted the masterpiece of Sebastiano Luciani. He was called del Piombo (lead), from his holding the office of Keeper of the Leaden Seal (see No. 20). Sebastiano was originally a painter and musician at Venice, where he studied successively under John Bellini and Giorgione. But in 1512 he was invited to Rome by the famous banker Agostino Chigi. Here he fell under the influence of Michael Angelo, who employed Sebastiano to execute several of his designs, and saw in him a means, says Vasari, of outdoing Raphael. The opportunity occurred when the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici commissioned Raphael to paint the "Transfiguration" (now in the Vatican), and at the same time Sebastiano to paint this picture, on the same scale, of the Raising of Lazarus. The pictures when finished were exhibited side by side, and there were some who preferred Sebastiano's. "The picture was painted," says Vasari, "with the utmost care, under the direction, and in some parts with the design, of Michael Angelo." There are in the British Museum two original drawings by Michael Angelo which are evidently preparatory studies for the figure of Lazarus; but Sebastiano cannot have painted under his friend's direction, for Michael Angelo was at Florence at the time, and Sebastiano writes to him, "There has been some delay with my work. I have endeavoured to keep it back as long as possible, that Raphael might not see it before it is finished… But now I do not hesitate any more. I believe I shall not, with my work, bring discredit upon you." Another masterpiece of Sebastiano has recently been added to the Gallery (1450), which also contains two of his portrait pieces (20 and 24), a branch of art in which he obtained great success; Vasari particularly notices his skill in painting the head and hands.

      Claude Gellée was the son of humble parents, and to the end he was an unlettered man. He was born in the village of Champagne, in the Vosges, Duchy of Lorraine, and thence acquired the name of Le Lorrain. Lineal descendants of Claude's brother still live in the village, and the house in which he was born is now preserved as a museum of relics of the painter. He was brought up, it is said, as a pastry-cook, but he entered the household of Agostino Tassi, a Perugian landscape painter, at Rome, in the capacity of general factotum, cooking his master's meals and grinding his colours. From him Claude received his first instruction in art. Subsequently he travelled to the Tyrol and to Venice – the influence of which place may be seen in the "gentle ripples of waveless seas" in his Seaports. After working for some time at Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, he returned in October 1627 to Rome, and there settled down for the remainder of his life. The house which he inhabited may still be seen at the angle of the streets Sistina and Gregoriana. Of his life at Rome many interesting particulars are given by his friend Sandrart, a German painter, who was for some years his companion. "In order," says Sandrart, "that he might be able to study closely the innermost secrets of nature, he used to linger in the open air from before daybreak even to nightfall, so that he might learn to depict with a scrupulous adherence to nature's model the changing phases of dawn, the rising and setting sun, as well as the hours of twilight… In this most difficult and toilsome mode of study he spent many years; making excursions into the country every day, and returning even after a long journey without finding it irksome. Sometimes I have chanced to meet him amongst the steepest cliffs at Tivoli, handling the brush before those well-known waterfalls, and painting the actual scene, not by the aid of imagination or invention, but according to the very objects which nature placed before him."39 (One of these sketches is now in the British Museum.) On one expedition to Tivoli, Claude was accompanied, we know, by Poussin, but for the most part he lived a secluded life; "he did not," says Sandrart, "in everyday life much affect the civilities of polite society." Such seclusion must partly have been necessary to enable Claude to cope with the commissions that crowded in upon him. For the Pope Urban VIII. he painted the four pictures now in the Louvre, and the three succeeding popes were all among his patrons. So was Cardinal Mazarin and the Duke of Bouillon, the Papal Commander-in-Chief, for whom amongst other pictures he painted two (12 and 14) in this Gallery. England was a great buyer of his works: nineteen were ordered from here in 1644 alone; and commissions came also from Denmark and the Low Countries. One sees the pressure of a busy man in the number of "stock" subjects which he repeated. He suffered much too from forgers, and it was partly to check the sale of fictitious Claudes that he prepared his "Liber Veritatis" – a collection of drawings of all his pictures, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. Two hundred and seventy more of his drawings may be seen in the British Museum. For his figures, however, he was glad of outside help, and many painters put these in for him. The soft, pensive, and almost feminine charm which characterises his landscapes well agree with what we know of his life. He was passionately fond of music. To a little girl, "living with me and brought up in my house in charity," he bequeathed much of his treasures. He had received also a poor, lame lad into his house, whom he instructed in painting and music, and who rewarded him by demanding arrears of salary for "assistance." Towards his poor relations he was uniformly generous, and when Sandrart left him it was a nephew from the Vosges whom he called to keep house for him.

      With regard to the characteristics of Claude's art, his general position in the history of landscape painting has been defined in the chapter on the French School, and some further points of detail are noticed under his several works. Here, however, it may be convenient to give Ruskin's summary of the matter. (1) Claude had a fine feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage. His tenderness of conception is especially shown in delicate aerial effects, such as no one had ever rendered before, and in some respects, no one has ever done in oil-colour since. But their character appears to rise rather from a delicacy of bodily constitution in Claude than

Скачать книгу