Читать книгу Landscapes - Émile Michel - Страница 5

Like in Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance, painting only developed in Northern Europe after architecture and sculpture. It is in these two branches of art, therefore, that we must look for the first traces of a direct study of picturesque nature. Though at first consigned to the dark aisles of cathedrals, painting gradually began to be seen above the altars in the coloured sections of multifold pictures. Slow though the progress was, the stiff, set types which ignorance, rather than ecclesiastical rule, had assigned to sacred figures unconsciously began to be transformed. Life, with all its different meanings, now animated these pictures with which the simple piety of preceding ages had been satisfied, and the principal cause of this innovation was the portrait. Together with the sacred scenes presented to believers, we see here and there a few figures, generally of smaller size and somewhat in the background, invoking divine protection. These figures are the donors of the pictures, and, to flatter them and also to prove his own ability, the painter took pains to make the resemblance as exact as possible. The artist introduced into the picture a view of the surrounding country with its certain characteristics, such as its streams of water or the trees and plants peculiar to it. Not only did he honour in this way those who employed him, but he extended his own field of study.

Illuminated manuscripts, however, were the cause of the most marked progress in the representation of landscape. On attentively studying the miniatures of this time, the variety to be found in them is astonishing. There were many honest, conscientious, patient labourers, of doubtful taste and second-rate ability who, sparing neither their eyes nor their time, devoted themselves absolutely to their work. There were also many true artists who freely lavished their treasures of invention, of skill, and of poetry on productions more often than not anonymous and restricted to a very small space. These artists were chiefly, often exclusively, dependent on the flora of the country in which they lived for the decorative motives of the margins of their missals and breviaries.

Such work was no doubt fascinating, but the miniaturist did not allow himself to be completely absorbed by these small details. More interesting work still was proposed to him, and when, in the calendars that usually formed the headings of the prayer books, he took up the series of those rustic scenes that sculptors had formerly tried to reproduce on the walls of cathedrals, he was able to represent them with all the importance possible. From page to page the different months are before us with the occupations peculiar to each, while every picture gives us the ever-changing scenery of nature, thus enabling us to follow the ceaseless transformations of the year. Gradually, in spite of the small dimensions of their works and the limited means at their disposal, the miniaturists succeeded in giving a strange poetry and truthfulness to their representations of landscape. It was just when oil painting was becoming more generally employed, and when printing, which was to bring about the disappearance of their art, was just discovered, that these miniaturists shone most brilliantly.

Several of them, certainly, after being initiated into the new methods, continued to exercise their talent as illuminators and had great influence over the rapid development of painting. But there were other circumstances which brought about the sudden and marvellous perfection of this art, the first being the genius of the Van Eyck brothers.

Although it has never been possible to obtain any exact information on this point, it is probable that the two brothers belonged to a family of artists. The country of their birth was, at that time, one of the richest in Europe, and, as regards civilisation, one of the most advanced. At Liege, in the service of Bishop John of Bavaria, and at the Court of Burgundy where they had been summoned by Philip the Good, the van Eycks were soon in great favour. On the death of his elder brother, Hubert (c.1390–1426), Jan (c.1391–1441), who was then in his maturity, was able to spend a whole year in Portugal and to visit the North of Spain in consequence of a mission with which his master had charged him (1428–1429). On returning to Bruges, he received many proofs of the appreciation of Philip the Good. In 1432, he exhibited, at Ghent, that Adoration of the Mystic Lamb which his brother had designed and he had finished. His contemporaries hailed this picture as the most perfect work that Northern art had hitherto produced.

If we were only to speak of the representation of nature, as understood by the Van Eycks, we should have to acknowledge the greatness and originality of their genius. Their whole work is excellent, but the most striking example of it is given in that wonderful Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Whilst giving the necessary importance to the personages in this picture, landscape is not neglected. It remains subordinate to the composition, and it contributes to that character of unity which is so striking. In that crowd, hurrying from all parts towards the centre, the arrangement of the groups, the general disposition of the lines, the attitudes and gestures of the figures; all compel us to look at the mystic lamb. The landscape which serves as a background to this grand poem completes the significance of the composition in the happiest way. The mountains and passes traversed by the processions end in undulating meadow, in the midst of which the divine symbol, placed on an altar, is presented to the adoration of the faithful. Forming a double group, angels and believers are kneeling around the lamb, encircling him with their affections, whilst beyond are the hills, and in the gaps between these can be seen the bluish perspectives of the horizon. All classes of humanity and all the representatives of the celestial hierarchy are to be seen here together. By the side of this picture of spiritual life, the artist gives us a picture of the universe with its mountains and plains, its woods and its meadows, the water of its rivers, and the aridity of its deserts; with its towns, and its solitudes, the richness of its Southern flora, covered with blossom or fruit, and the vegetations of various lands.

Hans Memling, St. Veronica (Triptych of Jan Floreins, reverse), c.1470–1475.

Oil on panel, 30.3 × 22.8 cm.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

Gerard David, Triptych of the Sedano Family (left wing: Jean de Sedano and his son; central panel: The Virgin and Child between Angel Musicians; right wing: Marie, wife of Jean de Sedano, with St. John the Evangelist, c.1490–1495.

Oil on wood, 97 × 72 cm (central panel); 91 × 30 cm (shutters).

Paris.

On looking at this prodigious work, one feels the presence of a superior mind, but elevated as is the conception, one feels that it is also interpreted by a painter. An intelligent love of reality is manifested in the execution of all the details. The myriads of flowers studded in the thick grass have their separate import and expression. They all contribute to the beautification of that delicate grassy carpet, whose soft green contrasts with the startling reds of the costumes of the various personages. The exotic vegetation is studied with the same conscientiousness. The artist does not display this Southern flora which he has borrowed for the mere sake of attracting attention. Here there are none of the eccentricities peculiar to those travellers of all times who make the most of their excursions and of the extraordinary things they may have seen. Although the landscape is an imaginary one composed of heterogeneous elements, it looks real, and its main lines as well as its general harmony give it logical unity. The drawing is extremely true and striking. Without conventionality, it draws its strength, variety, and correctness from reality. The perspective, as regards the essential rules, is astonishingly correct for that period. The question is whether the Van Eycks formulated their own rules, whether they received them from those who had preceded them, or whether, with their keen understanding, they discovered the laws for themselves in their conscientious consultations with nature. It would be difficult to decide this; but we must admit that their knowledge of perspective was very thorough.

If Jan van Eyck was not alone responsible for this immense piece of work, he certainly did the greater part of it. Far from being exhausted by this task, he soon afterwards gave proof of his prolific talent by other works which prove even more the originality and flexibility of his genius.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi, c.1495.

Oil on wood, 138 × 138 cm.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The excellence of the Van Eycks is most evident when they are compared with their predecessors. It is none the less striking when they are compared with the painters who succeeded them. The charm of naturalness, the force and frankness of expression which we admire in them, is not to be met with in the same degree in the period that followed. They seemed to reach perfection at once, and to fix with decisive authority the limits of their art. With them and their immediate successors, Rogier van der Weyden (c.1399–1464) and Hans Memling (c.1430–1494), terminates that initial period of Flemish art in all its freshness. The impressions it interpreted were honestly felt, and there was no touch of conventionalism to modify its frankness. Subsequently the very genius of these early masters hampered their successors and paralysed the originality of their talent. Whether they yielded to involuntary reminiscences, or whether, on the contrary, they tried to refrain from following the example of their predecessors, an unconscious mannerism crept into their works and gave them a somewhat affected and artificial character. Following Gerard David’s example, some of his contemporaries were induced to attempt a too detailed imitation of nature, whilst others endeavoured to seek for themselves new paths in the domain of the fantastic and marvellous. Hieronymus van Aken (c.1450–1516), better known as Bosch, is celebrated for his Temptations, Hells, and the diabolical visions which were his specialty, but his originality is evident when he restricts himself to the representations of nature. In one of his most remarkable works, the triptych entitled The Adoration of the Magi, the landscape, which stretches away beyond the cradle, is rendered with great detail.

By the firmness of the drawing and the truthfulness of the colour, he has expressed very forcibly the character of one of those wild districts, whose poetry had not hitherto tempted the brush of his predecessors. A stream of water, overhung by beautiful trees, is to be seen, and, farther away, uncultivated land sparsely covered with grass.

In time the taste for painting gradually became more general throughout the Netherlands, but, attracted by the ever-increasing prestige of the Italian Renaissance, Flemish artists began to cross the mountains in search of their idyll and to complete their education. As a result of this migration toward the South we see the originality of the old national art of the Netherlands gradually disappear. By coming into contact with foreign art, it lost that sincerity which had been its great force. All attempts to conciliate aspirations so contrary, notwithstanding the talent of those who made them, resulted in hybrid productions devoid both of style and naturalness.

Joachim Patinir, Landscape with St. Jerome, 1516–1517.

Oil on wood, 74 × 91 cm.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, c.1490.

Oil on wood, 42 × 28 cm.

Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.

Nevertheless, the name of Bernard van Orley deserves to be remembered among the painters we have just mentioned. After his return from Italy his talent certainly developed and was unique unto himself. But it is not in his pictures that we must look for the best proofs of his originality as a landscapist. Van Orley was a decorator of the first rank and, together with his designs for the beautiful St. Gudule windows, those of several series of tapestries, particularly Maximilian’s hunting scenes, deserves mention for the breadth with which the landscape is treated. In the series of the Twelve Months, some panels of which are in the Louvre, there are various hunting episodes which give a faithful picture of the country around Brussels, Soignie Forest, Tervuren, Septfontaines, with the castles, convents, pools, or rivers in the neighbourhood. The plants and shrubs skilfully grouped in the foreground of these compositions testify to a scrupulous study of the local flora, which has also furnished the motives of the designs of the borders. But such exactness is quite exceptional with the Flemish painters of this period.

We must mention Joachim Patenier, who was for a long time regarded by critics as the inventor of landscape painting as a separate branch of art sufficient in itself. Of him, who is said to have been Herri met de Bles’ master, many fables have been told. There is, however, nothing among the few certain dates and facts that we know of his life to justify the reputation for drunkenness and disorder attributed to him by certain chroniclers. He went at an early age to live in Antwerp, and in 1515 was a member of the Guild there. Albrecht Dürer, who was travelling in the Netherlands, was present at his induction, which took place in 1521. Dürer was celebrated greatly by Patenier, who appreciated the young artist’s talent. As a souvenir of his visit, Dürer not only painted his portrait, but also left him several sketches of little figures for his compositions.

Patenier frequently placed his brush at the service of his fellow artists. He was one of the first to set the example of those collaborations which subsequently became so frequent. For several of his fellow artists he painted the backgrounds of their pictures. His ability and also his care and conscientiousness in the execution of his work would serve, if necessary, to refute the accusations against him.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Parable of the Blind Men, 1568.

Tempera on canvas, 85.5 × 154 cm.

Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.

The district in which Patenier was born no doubt contributed to develop his love of nature. He was surrounded by somewhat weird scenery but well calculated to delight a landscapist of those times. The situation of Dinant on the banks of the Meuse; the rapid course of the river, and such variety of scenery within so restricted a space, was just what the painters of that period delighted to depict. Far from endeavouring to simplify this already complex nature, Patenier seems to deliberately add to its strangeness by the crowd of heterogeneous details that he brings together. We have the sea; steep mountains; lonely, inaccessible rocks crowned by towns or dwellings; perspectives which stretch out on every side, and streams of water. In spite of this packing-in of detail, he does not appear to consider that landscape can be of sufficient interest alone to make it the exclusive subject of his pictures. He thinks it necessary to introduce episodes into them, but he restricts, more than his predecessors, the number of his figures. These supply him with titles. Thus we have the Baptism of Christ and other episodes that his predecessors had already treated and which, for long afterwards, were painted by his successors.

Patenier, therefore, was certainly not an innovator. He attempted, with more success than anyone else up to that date, to increase the importance of landscape and to reduce that of the figures, though without eliminating them entirely. He was the first to adopt that systematic distribution of the three tones which is to be seen in his landscapes; the warm brown for the foreground to give relief, the more or less decided greens for the less important parts, and the blue for the distances. This distribution, in accordance with the laws of aerial perspective, lends itself to pretty contrasts. For a long time Flemish landscapists, no doubt following the example of the Venetians, had recourse to this method of obtaining effect which Patenier had inaugurated. We find traces of this method, more or less disguised, in all of them, and the exaggerated use of so simple an expedient gives a certain monotony to their work.

With the landscapists of the close of the sixteenth century, this defect is more particularly noticeable. It is to be seen in the works of Jan Bruegel the Elder. Another cause of uniformity which lessens the value of these artists is the choice of their favourite subjects. We have Earthly Paradise, The Tower of Babel, The Deluge, The Massacre of the Innocents, Orpheus Charming the Animals, Fairs, Battles, etc; all subjects which allow the artist to increase the number of his figures and animals at pleasure. They yielded to this current of routine and vogue with an almost submissive ease. The history of art gives us only too many instances of this kind. Instead of trying to find direct and individual inspirations in the country around them, most of them went to other lands, particularly to Italy, in search of impressions which were necessarily superficial and confused. Landscape painting of such a kind is purely decorative, and its various aspects, insufficiently characterised, are not calculated to appeal to us.