UMBRIAN SCHOOL PERUGINO

“For all honest work is worship, And to labour is to pray.”

The painters, natives of the townlets round the hamlet of Assisi formed the Umbrian school. There had been born the saint whose heart burned with love and pity for the suffering of men and beasts. Assisi, closely associated with the life of St. Francis, is the spiritual mother of the school of Umbria. Essentially religious in spirit this school had a cultivated sense of classic beauty in the human form, far excelling that of Siena.

To the Umbrian school belongs the glory of having nurtured Raphael—dear Raphael who painted the “Madonna and Child” as no man has painted them. His master, Perugino, belonged to this school. He was born about 1446, and died in 1524. His real name was Pietro Vannucci, but, later, when he became a citizen of Perugia, he called himself after the town of his adoption. He was brought up in great poverty. Vasari tells us he was apprenticed to an artist who was very deficient as a painter, but who had a great reverence for art. The master was always telling his pupil what a glory it was to excel in painting, and Perugino’s imagination was fired. He was continually asking which was the best place to study in, and the master always answered that Florence was the only place, firstly because all men there were critics, secondly because Florence was not built upon a fertile soil, so that all must work hard to gain a living, and, lastly, because the air of Florence excited dullards, so that the dwellers therein for ever sought honour and glory.

To Florence went Perugino eager in his quest. He studied, we are told, under Andrea Verrocchio, and in a few years he had obtained a great reputation, so that his pictures were sought for in many countries besides Italy. He was sensitively honest, and he easily took offence. Once he had to ornament with painting the cloisters of a convent, of which the prior had a great reputation for making ultramarine. This is a most beautiful blue extracted from a very rare and precious mineral. The prior was very suspicious, fearing that his ultramarine should be stolen, so he would watch the artist at work; and honest Perugino took it very ill that the prior should distrust him. He resolved to prove to him how easy it was to cheat, if you were so minded, and, ordering a large pail of water, he continually washed his brush laden with ultramarine. Every time that the prior groaned because he had to provide more of his precious colour, Perugino would say cheerfully, “You see I have used it all.” The picture was finished; then the artist took his noble revenge. He emptied the water and showed a deposit of blue mineral collected at the bottom of the basin.

“You should not distrust an honest man,” he said to the prior. “You must learn to trust, for the honest man too knows how to deceive suspicious men like yourself.”

The National Gallery possesses four undoubted pictures by Perugino (181, 288, 1075, 1441). “The Baptism of Our Lord” (1431) is not undoubted, so we do not include it in our list. You will find in all these pictures a lovely purity of tone, an ideal sense of beauty, and a most perfect grace. The peacefulness of the landscape, introduced as a background, brings a spiritual repose to the work. In the “Madonna and Child” (288) we see the quiet hills behind the Virgin’s head; a lovely river runs at their base, peaceful as a river in Paradise. The somewhat formal trees repeat each other, one on either side; their slender stems, their branchings, are examples of perfect symmetry. It is like a landscape seen in a dream, not quite natural, but full of mystic romance.

If you look at “The Virgin and Child and St. John” (181) you will find these qualities repeated. The saintly beauty of the young Virgin’s face is very noticeable; there is a melancholy and a purity on her broad brow, in her downcast eyes, gazing with an anticipation of sorrow on her bonny boy. The richness of her raiment is finely rendered; on the border of her mantle, embroidered in gold, is Perugino’s name. Behind her head stretches a delicate sky, hills at whose base winds a river, level meadows beyond; all are steeped in a transparent golden glow. In the picture (288) which I have mentioned there is the same purity, the same exquisiteness of tone. The young mother is worshipping her Child, which an angel is holding, angels aloft are choiring praises to It, while on either side are two panels; on one is depicted the Archangel Michael, dressed in armour typifying that he is the “orderer of Christian warfare,” on the other is Raphael, the ministering angel, the friend of man; Tobias is looking at his gentle countenance. All Perugino’s qualities are repeated in “The Virgin and Child, St. Jerome and St. Francis”[1] (1075)—beautiful pictures painted by a master hand, seen in a master’s vision!

Footnote 1:

“The Adoration of the Shepherds” (1441) is believed to be the last picture by Perugino.

Perugino died at the age of seventy-eight. Vasari tells us that he was very fond of money, because of the extreme poverty of his up-bringing. All his pictures testify to the charm and peace of his soul.