THE FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE SCHOOL

“Let us be content in work To do the thing we can, and not presume To fret because it’s little.”

The Ferrarese and Bolognese schools are almost one and the same, for the Bolognese school is but an offshoot of that of Ferrara. They are specially interesting for their influence upon other schools. The Ferrarese people had much innate genius for art; they had also strong originality of character.

Cosimo Tura (1420–1498) is the first painter that we can trace of that school. The great house of Este was the royal house of Ferrara; its lords were among the most learned in Italy, and attracted great men to their service. Piero della Francesca came thither. He was a man of science as well as of art, accomplished in the treatment of light and shadow as well as of perspective. He it was who influenced the art of Cosimo Tura, who is considered the leader of the school. To the court of Este also came Roger Van der Weyden, a German artist of eminence, who likewise influenced Tura.

“The Madonna and Child Enthroned” (772). Its wealth of detail is extraordinary, the painting is brilliant and somewhat harsh in effect. The types of the faces of the angels are certainly Flemish. It has been said that the picture looks like a coloured Flemish window of the fifteenth century. The details are strong and splendid. Six angels play musical instruments; they are sweet, high-spirited girls, somewhat German in type and German by their golden hair. They play the viol and violin, and two of them in the foreground play upon a portable organ; one strikes the keys—beautiful ivory keys—while the other blows the bellows. It is an animated scene full of youth and exuberant vitality. We feel that Cosimo Tura was an original genius. Let us look at “St. Jerome in the Desert” (773). There is in the picture the same spirit of vigorous life. St. Jerome is beating his breast with a large stone; all about him is rugged nature, softened into friendliness by the gentle company of birds and beasts who recognise the grim saint to be their friend. Among them is the familiar lion placidly walking to the stream for water. It is a wild and homely scene.

Ercole di Giulio Cesare Grandi (died 1531) is another remarkable painter of the Ferrarese school. “The Virgin and Child with St. John and St. William” (1119) is a splendid work. Not much of a personal kind is known about Ercole Grandi, yet we seem to know him as we look at this fine picture. The Virgin is sitting under a rich canopy, a graceful, serious, dark-eyed woman; she holds her Son on her left knee, and He is beautifully poised. Look how natural is the gesture of His hand outstretched, blessing the spectators and saints. He has a charming face full of benign and childlike grace. Below are the saints. To the left of the throne is the gaunt figure of the Baptist holding a volume. It is the book of Prophets, and, in the other hand, he carries his cross of reeds. To the right of the throne is St. William, a youthful knight, the defender of the faith. Bare-headed, with long flowing hair, he is dressed in armour, his right hand on his sword. He is a gallant youth, ready to do and die if need be for the faith. He contrasts in appearance with the strange, wild, ecstatic figure of the Baptist. I should like you to examine all the delicate details that adorn this picture, every one of which has a meaning carefully thought out and placed there with intention by the painter. First of all, on the arch above the Virgin’s head, is a beautiful design of angels and lilies. They seem to indicate the painter’s love of the Mother of God, whom the holy cherubim and seraphim worship; clusters of lilies between each group signify her purity. Underneath her feet, round the throne, is a design of dolphins that symbolise love, and below them another design of stags and swans—emblems of the heart longing for its God. And still further below is a central panel placed in the base of the throne; it is in ivory and _alto relievo_; it represents Adam and Eve on each side of the tree of knowledge. On the prædella are scenes from the divine story. We might study this picture for a long time—there is in it so much of symbolism and of simple human nature.

All the pictures in this room are interesting; those especially by Garofalo (1481–1559), who has been called the “miniature Raphael.” He was afflicted with blindness towards the end of his life, but he was cheerful, and accepted the sorrow as the will of God. I would ask you to look at all his pictures, but particularly at “The Madonna and Child Enthroned” (671), in which he introduces St. William, the patron saint of Ferrara. We have seen the saint in Ercole’s great picture, and St. William appears again here dressed in armour, typifying that he was a soldier and that he had led a soldier’s wild life. But his heart was touched, and he left behind the temptations and the glory of the life of arms and became a holy man. He left the weapons of the flesh and adopted those of prayer and penitence. He dwelt in mountain solitudes, communing with his Lord the Christ. Beside him stands St. Clare, who was the friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and who spent her days after the death of this saint in striving with Popes to attain for herself and her order, the little Clares, the triumph of “holy poverty.” On the other side of the throne stands St. Francis and the good St. Anthony. All these figures reveal the painter’s aspiration after a life which was at one with the divine ideal. St. Francis represented the all-consuming love of created things, St. Anthony the struggle of life with temptation, St. William the bright spirit of man tamed and devoted to the love of Christ, and St. Clare the woman’s love for her friend, carrying out his work for the poor and afflicted. The whole picture reveals a genius serene and absorbed in divine contemplation. Look also at the “Vision of St. Augustine” (81), at the “Holy Family” (170), at “Christ’s Agony in the Garden” (642)—we see in all the spirit triumphant over earthly impediments.

One picture by Francesco del Cossa (died 1430), whose work in continental galleries you may get to know later, is well worth looking at, “St. Hyacinth Dominican” (597). The figure of the saint is standing upon a hexagonal platform; he is looking up to Christ in glory surrounded by angels, and pointing to a rosary. It has a grandeur and severity which are ever noticeable in this painter’s works.

Then we come to Lorenzo Costa (1460–1535), a friend of Francia, whom he influenced to take up painting. There is a certain feebleness in Costa’s style, but there is in it a gentle dignity that redeems its shortcomings. He did not paint drapery very intelligently, for it hides rather than clothes the form, and there is a want of balance in his figures; they do not always stand firmly on their feet. He studied landscape and introduced it as a background. It is the purist landscape that he paints, with feathery trees and limpid skies. He has a great sense of colour, and his pictures are full of religious charm. He influenced many painters, who became his scholars, and, to his honour be it said, that he kindled in all a love of art. “The Madonna and Christ Enthroned with Angels” (629) is a very fair example of his qualities and also of his limitations. It is a large work in five panels. The Madonna sits enthroned on a high pedestal holding the infant Christ on her knee, angels on either side bend forward in adoration, and two baby angels play on musical instruments. In the lower compartment are the full-length figures of St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter. Above them are half-length figures of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist. I am sure you will notice how very limited is the choice of subjects in these painters—the Virgin enthroned, the Virgin and Child, and angels are always appearing.

Francia is the crown and glory of the school of Ferrara. His real name is Raibolini, and he was the son of a carpenter. Born in 1450, he died in 1518. Apprenticed in his youth to a goldsmith, he became skilled in all the arts that are required for the handling of the precious metal. He understood enamelling, medal engraving, die sinking, and he became master of the mint of Bologna, and he retained that position to the end of his days, even when painting had become the absorbing occupation of his life. He had, as I have told you, a great friendship for Lorenzo Costa, and, when he was forty, it was through Costa’s influence that he took to painting. Here are two noble pictures that together form one altarpiece—“A Pietà” (180), in the shape of a lunette, to be placed above (179), a tall picture showing the “Virgin and Child and St. Anne Enthroned, surrounded by Saints.” In the “Pietà” the dead Christ is lying across His Mother’s knee, an angel on either side. Oh! how sad is the Mother’s face, how tear reddened are her eyes as she gazes on the Son so cruelly martyred. He is beautiful in His young manhood; His gentle, refined face shows the trace of His suffering and of His longing to redeem humanity. It is very calm, as if He were sleeping, now that the struggle is over; a faint aureole shows above His head. One of the kneeling angels holds a lock of His red gold hair, gazing out of the picture as if she were saying, “Look how beautiful it is! Oh the pity of it!” And the other angel is gazing at the nail prints in the Saviour’s feet. It is a picture filled with the spirit of grief. “The pity of it, oh the pity of it!” is what the weeping Virgin seems to be saying, and it is repeated by the angels watching the recumbent figure of the slain Christ.

In the other picture (179) we see the Virgin, in her young and happy motherhood, holding her Baby on her lap. He is full of happy infant life as he strains towards the peach held out to him by St. Anne, who is seated by the Virgin’s side. She is a noble figure with her shrouded head, the dark veil reaching down to her shoulders, white draperies folded about her neck; she is an austere and gracious type of elderly womanhood. About the Virgin’s throne are a group of saints and martyrs—St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, St. Paul leaning on the sword that is to kill him, St. Lawrence bearing the gridiron and the palm of martyrdom, and St. Frediano placed there in honour of the church under his patronage, for which the picture was painted. All are looking upwards towards the mother and Babe. Below is a delightful child, John the Baptist, carrying his cross and a scroll on which are inscribed the words, “Ecce Agnus Dei.” He trips along pointing upwards to the Baby in its mother’s lap. There are many charming children in the National Gallery, but none is more lovely than is this child with his dancing step and his grace of perfect innocence.

“THE VIRGIN WITH THE INFANT CHRIST, AND ST. ANNE ENTHRONED, SURROUNDED BY SAINTS” (179)

BY FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI (CALLED FRANCIA)

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I must tell you of the death of Francia, as Vasari, the prince of chroniclers, tells it. He and the divine Raphael were friends although they had never met, but they had “saluted each other by letter,” and they corresponded and loved each other. Francia was old and could not leave Bologna, but he longed greatly to see some work by Raphael. His wish was fulfilled. One day he received a letter from Raphael telling him that he was sending a picture of St. Cecilia to the church of San Giovanni in Monte at Bologna. He begged Francia to supervise the hanging thereof, and, as a favour to himself, to repair any damage that might have happened to the picture. Francia was happy; at last he was to see a picture by Raphael. When the case came he had it opened before him, and when he beheld the St. Cecilia he was struck dumb with wonder at its beauty. He looked at it till his eyes were full of its loveliness, and then he realised that nothing that he had done could compare with the splendour of Raphael’s work, that all the praise lavished upon him by his compatriots was undeserved. He had St. Cecilia carefully put up in the chapel, but he had received his death-blow. It had been given when he discovered the greatness of the difference existing between him and Raphael. He went home in a state of great depression, took to his bed, and in a few days he died of melancholy.

The other pictures in this room I am sure you will appreciate later on.

But I should like to draw your attention to those by Dosso Dossi, who held a high place among his contemporaries, and was called “The Titian of the Ferrarese School.” He was born at Bologna, 1479; he died in 1542, and was a pupil of the Ferrarese Lorenzo Costa. He is very badly represented in the National Gallery, but he has won a very remarkable name for himself; and in churches and galleries on the Continent you will see him at his best. Dossi was not of a religious spirit, and his finest works treat of mythological subjects. His colour is very rich, and he is said to have painted excellent portraits. This picture, “The Adoration of the Magi” (640), is principally remarkable for the hilly landscape with trees in the background, and “A Muse Instructing a Court Poet” has much in it that is interesting. The head of the poet is said to be a portrait. Dosso Dossi, is not to be judged by either of these pictures.