Читать книгу Six Centuries of Painting - Randall Davies - Страница 7

Of Giotto's numerous followers in the fourteenth century it is impossible in the present work to give any particular account, but of his influence at large on the practice as on the treatment and conception of painting at this stage of its development, one or two examples may be cited as typical of the progress he urged, such as the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa. This wonderful cloister, which measures four hundred feet in length and over a hundred in width—traditionally the dimensions of Noah's ark—was founded by the Archbishop Ubaldo, before 1200, on his return from Palestine bringing fifty-three ships laden with earth from the Holy Land. On this soil it was erected, and surrounded by high walls in 1278. The whole of these walls were afterwards adorned with paintings, in two tiers.

So far as concerns the history of painting, the question of the authorship of these frescoes—which are by several distinct hands—is altogether subordinate to that of the subjects depicted and the manner in which they are treated, and we shall learn more from a general survey of them than by following out the fortunes of particular painters. The earliest are those on the east side, near the chapel, but more important are those on the north, of about the middle of the fourteenth century, which show a decided advance, both in feeling and execution, beyond Giotto. The first is The Triumph of Death, in which the supernatural is tempered with representations of what is mortal to an extent that already shows that painting was not to be confined to religious uses alone. All the pleasures and sorrows of life are here represented, on the earth; it is only in the sky that we see the demons and angels. On one side is a festive company of ladies and cavaliers, with hawks and dogs, seated under orange trees, with rich carpets at their feet, all splendidly dressed. A troubadour and a singing girl amuse them with songs, amorini flutter around them and wave their torches. On the other side is another group, also a hunting party, on splendidly caparisoned horses, and accompanied by a train of attendants. On the mountains in the background are several hermits, who in contrast to the votaries of pleasure have attained in a life of contemplation and abstinence the highest term of human existence. Many of the figures are traditionally supposed to be portraits.

The centre foreground is devoted to the less fortunate on earth, the beggars and cripples, and also corpses of the mighty; and with these we may turn to the allegorical treatment of the subject. To the first group descends the angel of death, swinging a scythe, and to her the unfortunate are stretching out their arms in supplication for an end to their sorrows. The second group, it will be seen, are tracing a path which leads to three open coffins in which lie the bodies of three princes in different stages of decay, while a monk on crutches—intended for S. Macarius—is pointing to them. The air is filled with angels and demons, some of whom receive the souls of the dead.

A second picture is The Last Judgment, and a third Hell, the resemblance between which and the great altar-piece in the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, painted by Andrea Orcagna in 1357, was formerly considered proof of the same authorship. They are now attributed to an unknown disciple of Pietro Lorenzetti, who was painting in Siena between 1306 and 1348, and is assumed to have been a pupil of Duccio.

The fourth picture, apparently by another hand—possibly that of Lorenzetti himself—is The Life of the Hermits in the wilderness of Thebais, composed of a number of single groups in which the calm life of contemplation is represented in the most varied manner. In front flows the Nile, and a number of hermits are seen on its banks still subjected to earthly occupations; they catch fish, hew wood, carry burdens to the city, etc. Higher up, in the mountains, they are more estranged from the world, but the Tempter follows them in various disguises, sometimes frightful, sometimes seducing. As a whole this composition is constructed in the ancient manner—as in Byzantine art—several series rising one above the other, each of equal size, and without any pretension to perspective: the single groups, at the same time, are executed with much grace and feeling.

Next to this are six pictures of the history of S. Ranieri, and as many of the lives of S. Efeso and S. Potito. The latter are known to have been painted in 1392 by Spinello of Arezzo, or Spinello Aretino as he is called, of whose work we have some fragments in the National Gallery—alas too few! Two of these fragments are from his large fresco The Fall of the Rebellious Angels, painted for the church of S. Maria degli Angeli at Arezzo, which after being whitewashed over were rescued on the conversion of the church to secular uses. Vasari relates that when Spinello had finished this work the devil appeared to him in the night as horrible and deformed as in the picture, and asked him where he had seen him in so frightful a form, and why he had treated him so ignominiously. Spinello awoke from his dream with horror, fell into a state of abstraction, and soon afterwards died.

On the third part of the south wall is represented the history of Job, in a series of paintings which were formerly attributed to Giotto himself, though it is now recognised that they cannot be of an earlier date than about 1370.

The Temptation of Job is by Taddeo Gaddi, and the others, painted in 1372, are probably by Francesco da Volterra—not to be confused with the sixteenth century painter Daniele da Volterra.

The paintings on the west wall are of inferior workmanship, while those on the north were the crowning achievement of Benozzo Gozzoli a century later.