PAOLO VERONESE

" The Vision of St. Helena " may serve to illustrate Paolo Veronese's method, although probably painted not by the master himself, but by his pupil Battista Zelotti. According to the reliable evidence of Boschini and the experience of the Venetian restorers, Paolo's abozzo was in the middle tints-that is, he selected, much in the way I have [158] endeavoured to impress on you in painting from the life direct, the tone and colour that stands midway between the lights and the deeper halftones. On these he impastoed, not heavily but with a full brush, the highest lights, and then glazed the shadows, which with him were rarely deep; for he was above all a decorator, and the darks in pure decoration are made rather of the flat masses of coloured draperies than of the play of light and shade.

The " St. Helena " is on a rough unprimed canvas ; probably a thin coat of size is all that lies between the paint and the threads. Paolo Veronese and his pupils favoured a coarse-textured ground, which enabled them to obtain a greater variety of surfaces. The sky and flesh here, unlike the draperies, are somewhat smooth. The skirt, an interesting study in broken colours, is treated with a full brush in the lights on it, the reddish glazes being caught in the deep interstices of the canvas.

One of Paolo Veronese's finest works is "The Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander." On a close examination of this picture it will be seen that the damasked patterns are painted over the dry first colouring, and the lights on the folds worked over or into the colour glazes ; and a distinct outline is drawn around the figures, which imparts a decorative value to the whole.

Besides this picture and "The Adoration of the Magi," the National Gallery contains four ceiling panels, in which the figures are much foreshortened. [163] A unity of colour is preserved throughout this series by what appears to be an under-painting of a greenish grey. The silveriness of Paolo's colour, which distinguishes him from most other Venetians of his time, schemes well with the great gilt mouldings of Venetian ceilings and rich surroundings. With the prudence which distinguishes the great men, it was his wont to paint his mineral colours either in distemper or varnish, for oil dipicturesed them.

PAOLO VERONESE

ST. HELENA. VISION OP THE INVENTION OF THE CROSS

National Gallery

An exquisite example of decorative line and broken colour in the draperies.

XXXVI. ST. HELENA. VISION OF THE INVENTION OF THE CROSS. BY PAOLO VERONESE

CANALETTO

Among the Canalettos of our gallery is a view of "Venice," which is one of the master's finest examples. In it, remark the nature of the great shadows cast by the house on the left and by the campanile on to the body of the church. Then, again, the tonality of the rest of the picture with the sunlit masonry and other white stone passages. The dark brick of the church, although in sunlight, is low in tone and has that sense of weight and body due to justly contrasted values. The liquidness of the water is superb.

Here are none of the ruled, upright, and perspective lines to be seen in the " Grand Canal " from the same master's brush, which, to be hypercritical (for the painting is a fine one), detract from the solidity of the buildings and give an air of thinness and incompleteness to the work.

In mural decoration outlines are reasonable. The flatness felt by their use is desirable, for [164] much relief is not to be sought when a picture is to be considered as part of the wall itself.

Of this I shall treat in the closing chapter, but I wish you to remember that artifices that have their proper functions to fulfil in one form of art may be hurtful when applied to another. We must seek for the origin and purpose of these conventions, and not use them indiscriminately.

CANALETTO

A VIEW IN VENICE

National Gallery

This work well illustrates the sense of solidity and the weight-giving effect of carefully contrasted tone values.

XXXVII. A VIEW IN VENICE. BY CANALETTO

CORREGGIO

Before leaving the Italians, let us look for the Correggios in the Lombard room, the "Mercury, Venus, and Cupid " and " La Vierge au Panier."

If one were asked to date these pictures, knowing nothing of their history, one might place them well in the seventeenth century, so highly is the art in them developed. Still more extraordinary are they for the early sixteenth century when they were executed; and it says much for the perfection of their craft that they are still so fresh and luminous.

Leonardo da Vinci, whose art may be studied in the very beautiful " Virgin and the Rocks," wrote that a painter's line was a mathematical line and that it should nowhere be seen, for one colour began where the other ended. This fusion of the edges of the flesh with their setting is of the essence of Correggio's technique, sometimes to a point overdone; for, although he displays enormous technical skill and great charm of colour, [167] one often misses in his work a feeling of the bones beneath the flesh, and that human grip which one expects to find in the conceptions of the greatest masters. There is an excess of softness, amounting to prettiness, in his pictures of the " Vierge au Panier " type.

For this reason, when several of his rare works are seen together they are somewhat disappointing. As a colourist and a technician he is supreme, but his lack of vigour is distracting. Such I feel would be the criticisms levelled at his picture were they by a modern. And it is incomprehensible to me that different standards should obtain for any mature works, whether by deceased or living men.

CORREGGIO

VENUS, MERCURY, AND CUPID

National Gallery

Sweetness and purity of colour that a perfect technical method has preserved for three centuries and a half.

XXXVIII.VENUS, MERCURY, AND CUPID. BY CORREGGIO

[168]