The History of Italian Painting - Luigi Lanzi

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Whoever writes history upon the model of the learned ancients, ought not only to narrate events, but to investigate their secret sources and their causes. Now these will be here developed, tracing the progress of painting as it advanced or declined in each school; and these causes being invariable, point out the means of its improvement, by shewing what ought to be pursued and what avoided. Such observations are not of importance to the artist alone, but have a reference also to other individuals. In the Roman school, during its second epoch, I perceive that the progress of the arts invariably depends on certain principles universally adopted in that age, according to which artists worked, and the public decided. A general history, by pointing out the best maxims of art, may contribute considerably to make them known and regarded; and hence artists can execute, and others approve or direct, on principles no longer uncertain and questionable, nor deduced from the manner of a particular school, but founded on maxims unerring and established, and strengthened by the uniform practice of all schools and all ages. We may add, that in a history so diversified, numerous examples occur suited to the genius of different students, who have often to lament their want of success from this circumstance alone, that they had neglected to follow the path in which nature had destined them to tread. On the influence of examples I shall add no more: should any one be desirous also of precepts under every school, he will find them given, not indeed by me, but by those who have written more ably on the art, and whom I have diligently consulted with regard to different masters, as I shall hereafter mention.

      My third object was to facilitate an acquaintance with the various styles of painting. The artist or amateur indeed, who has studied the manner of all ages and of every school, on meeting with a picture can very readily assign it, if not to a particular master, at least to a certain style, much as antiquarians, from a consideration of the paper and the characters, are enabled to assign a manuscript to a particular era; or as critics conjecture the age and place in which an anonymous author flourished, from his phraseology. With similar lights we proceed to investigate the school and era of artists; and by a diligent examination of prints, drawings, and other relics belonging to the period, we at length determine the real author. Much of the uncertainty, with regard to pictures, arises from a similitude between the style of different masters: these I collect together under one head, and remark in what one differs from the other. Ambiguity often arises from comparing different works of the same painter, when the style of some of them does not seem to accord with his general manner, nor with the great reputation he may have acquired. On account of such uncertainty, I usually point out the master of each artist, because all at the outset imitate the example offered by their teachers; and I, moreover, note the style formed, and adhered to by each, or abandoned for another manner; I sometimes mark the age in which he lived, and his greater or less assiduity in his profession. By an attentive consideration of such circumstances, we may avoid pronouncing a picture spurious, which may have been painted in old age, or negligently executed. Who, for instance, would receive as genuine all the pictures of Guido, were it not known that he sometimes affected the style of Caracci, of Calvart, or of Caravaggio; and at other times pursued a manner of his own, in which, however, he was often very unequal, as he is known to have painted three or four different pieces in a single day? Who would suppose that the works of Giordano were the production of the same artist, if it were not known that he aspired to diversify his style, by adopting the manner of various ancient artists? These are indeed well known facts, but how many are there yet unnoted that are not unworthy of being related, if we wish to avoid falling into error? Such will be found noticed in my work, among other anecdotes of the various masters, and the different styles.

      To judge of a master we must attend to his design, and this is to be acquired from his drawings, from his pictures, or, at least, from accurate engravings after them. A good connoisseur in prints is more than half way advanced in the art of judging pictures; and he who aims at this must study engravings with unremitting assiduity. It is thus his eye becomes familiarized to the artist's method of delineating and foreshortening the figure, to the air of his heads and the casting of his draperies; to that action, that peculiarity of conception, of disposing, and of contrasting, which are habitual to his character. Thus is he, as it were, introduced to the different families of youths, of children, of women, of old men, and of individuals in the vigour of life, which each artist has adopted as his own, and has usually exhibited in his pictures. We cannot be too well versed in such matters, so minute or almost insensible are the distinctions between the imitators of one master, (such as Michelangiolo, for example,) who have perhaps studied the same cartoon, or the same statues, and, as it were, learned to write after the same model.

      More originality is generally to be discovered in colouring, a branch of the art formed by a painter rather on his own judgment, than by instruction. The amateur can never attain experience in this branch who has not studied many pictures by the same master; who has not observed his selection of colours, his method of separating, of uniting, and of subduing them; what are his local tints, and what the general tone that harmonizes the colours he employs. This tint, however clear and silvery in Guido and his followers, bright and golden in Titiano and his school, and thus of the rest, has still as many modifications as there are masters in the art. The same remark extends to middle tints and to chiaroscuro, in which each artist employs a peculiar method.

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