A Text-Book of the History of Painting

CHAPTER XX.. American Painting

AMERICAN PAINTING

POSTSCRIPT

INDEX

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Velasquez, Head of AEsop, Madrid Frontispiece

1 Hunting in the Marshes, Tomb of Ti, Saccarah

2 Portrait of Queen Taia

3 Offerings to the Dead. Wall painting

4 Vignette on Papyrus

5 Enamelled Brick, Nimroud

6 " " Khorsabad

7 Wild Ass. Bas-relief

8 Lions Frieze, Susa

9 Painted Head from Edessa

10 Cypriote Vase Decoration

11 Attic Grave Painting

12 Muse of Cortona

13 Odyssey Landscape

14 Amphore, Lower Italy

15 Ritual Scene, Palatine Wall painting

16 Portrait, Fayoum, Graf Collection

17 Chamber in Catacombs, with wall decorations

18 Catacomb Fresco, S. Cecilia

19 Christ as Good Shepherd, Ravenna mosaic

20 Christ and Saints, fresco, S. Generosa

21 Ezekiel before the Lord. MS. illumination

22 Giotto, Flight into Egypt, Arena Chap.

23 Orcagna, Paradise (detail), S. M. Novella

24 Lorenzetti, Peace (detail), Sienna

25 Fra Angelico, Angel, Uffizi

26 Fra Filippo, Madonna, Uffizi

27 Botticelli, Coronation of Madonna, Uffizi

28 Ghirlandajo, Visitation, Louvre

29 Francesca, Duke of Urbino, Uffizi

30 Signorelli, The Curse (detail), Orvieto

31 Perugino, Madonna, Saints, and Angels, Louvre

32 School of Francia, Madonna, Louvre

33 Mantegna, Gonzaga Family Group, Mantua

34 B. Vivarini, Madonna and Child, Turin

35 Giovanni Bellini, Madonna, Venice Acad.

36 Carpaccio, Presentation (detail), Venice Acad.

37 Antonello da Messina, Unknown Man, Louvre

38 Fra Bartolommeo, Descent from Cross, Pitti

39 Andrea del Sarto, Madonna of St. Francis, Uffizi

40 Michael Angelo, Athlete, Sistine Chap., Rome

41 Raphael, La Belle Jardiniere, Louvre

42 Giulio Romano, Apollo and Muses, Pitti

43 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, Louvre

44 Luini, Daughter of Herodias, Uffizi

45 Sodoma, Ecstasy of St. Catherine, Sienna

46 Correggio, Marriage of St. Catherine, Louvre

47 Giorgione, Ordeal of Moses, Uffizi

48 Titian, Venus Equipping Cupid, Borghese, Rome

49 Tintoretto, Mercury and Graces, Ducal Pal., Venice

50 Veronese, Venice Enthroned, Ducal Pal., Venice

51 Lotto, Three Ages, Pitti

52 Bronzino, Christ in Limbo, Uffizi

53 Baroccio, Annunciation

54 Annibale Caracci, Entombment of Christ, Louvre

55 Caravaggio, The Card Players, Dresden

56 Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, Louvre

57 Claude Lorrain, Flight into Egypt, Dresden

58 Watteau, Gilles, Louvre

59 Boucher, Pastoral, Louvre

60 David, The Sabines, Louvre

61 Ingres, Oedipus and Sphinx, Louvre

62 Delacroix, Massacre of Scio, Louvre

63 Gerome, Pollice Verso

64 Corot, Landscape

65 Rousseau, Charcoal Burner's Hut, Fuller Collection

66 Millet, The Gleaners, Louvre

67 Cabanel, Phaedra

68 Meissonier, Napoleon in 1814

69 Sanchez-Coello, Daughter of Philip II., Madrid

70 Murillo, St. Anthony of Padua, Dresden

71 Ribera, St. Agnes, Dresden

72 Fortuny, Spanish Marriage

73 Madrazo, Unmasked

74 Van Eycks, St. Bavon Altar-piece, Berlin

75 Memling (?), St. Lawrence, Nat. Gal., Lon.

76 Massys, Head of Virgin, Antwerp

77 Rubens, Portrait of Young Woman

78 Van Dyck, Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest

79 Teniers the Younger, Prodigal Son, Louvre

80 Alfred Stevens, On the Beach

81 Hals, Portrait of a Lady

82 Rembrandt, Head of a Woman, Nat. Gal., Lon.

83 Ruisdael, Landscape

84 Hobbema, The Water Wheel, Amsterdam Mus.

85 Israels, Alone in the World

86 Mauve, Sheep

87 Lochner, Sts. John, Catharine, Matthew, London

88 Wolgemut, Crucifixion, Munich

89 Duerer, Praying Virgin, Augsburg

90 Holbein, Portrait, Hague Mus.

91 Piloty, Wise and Foolish Virgins

92 Leibl, In Church

93 Menzel, A Reader

94 Hogarth, Shortly after Marriage, Nat. Gal., Lon.

95 Reynolds, Countess Spencer and Lord Althorp

96 Gainsborough, Blue Boy

97 Constable, Corn Field, Nat. Gal., Lon.

98 Turner, Fighting Temeraire, Nat. Gal., Lon.

99 Burne-Jones, Flamma Vestalis

100 Leighton, Helen of Troy

101 Watts, Love and Death

102 West, Peter Denying Christ, Hampton Court

103 Gilbert Stuart, Washington, Boston Mus.

104 Hunt, Lute Player

105 Eastman Johnson, Churning

106 Inness, Landscape

107 Winslow Homer, Undertow

108 Whistler, The White Girl

109 Sargent, "Carnation Lily, Lily Rose"

110 Chase, Alice, Art Institute, Chicago

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GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.

(This includes the leading accessible works that treat of painting in general. For works on special periods or schools, see the bibliographical references at the head of each chapter. For bibliography of individual painters consult, under proper names, Champlin and Perkins's Cyclopedia, as given below.)

Champlin and Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, New York.

Adeline, Lexique des Termes d'Art.

Gazette des Beaux Arts, Paris.

Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel, Paris.

L'Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustree, Paris.

Bryan, Dictionary of Painters. New edition.

Brockhaus, Conversations-Lexikon.

Meyer, Allgemeines Kuenstler-Lexikon, Berlin.

Muther, History of Modern Painting.

Agincourt, History of Art by its Monuments.

Bayet, Precis d'Histoire de l'Art.

Blanc, Histoire des Peintres de toutes les Ecoles.

Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil Painting.

Luebke, History of Art, trans. by Clarence Cook.

Reber, History of Ancient Art.

Reber, History of Mediaeval Art.

Schnasse, Geschichte der Bildenden Kuenste.

Girard, La Peinture Antique.

Viardot, History of the Painters of all Schools.

Williamson (Ed.), Handbooks of Great Masters.

Woltmann and Woermann, History of Painting.

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HISTORY OF PAINTING.

INTRODUCTION.

The origin of painting is unknown. The first important records of this art are met with in Egypt; but before the Egyptian civilization the men of the early ages probably used color in ornamentation and decoration, and they certainly scratched the outlines of men and animals upon bone and slate. Traces of this rude primitive work still remain to us on the pottery, weapons, and stone implements of the cave-dwellers. But while indicating the awakening of intelligence in early man, they can be reckoned with as art only in a slight archaeological way. They show inclination rather than accomplishment--a wish to ornament or to represent, with only a crude knowledge of how to go about it.

The first aim of this primitive painting was undoubtedly decoration--the using of colored forms for color and form only, as shown in the pottery designs or cross-hatchings on stone knives or spear-heads. The second, and perhaps later aim, was by imitating the shapes and colors of men, animals, and the like, to convey an idea of the proportions and characters of such things. An outline of a cave-bear or a mammoth was perhaps the cave-dweller's way of telling his fellows what monsters he had slain. We may assume that it was pictorial record, primitive picture-written history. This early method of conveying an idea is, in intent, substantially the same as the later hieroglyphic writing and historical painting of the Egyptians. The difference between them is merely one of development. Thus there is an indication in the art of Primitive Man of the two great departments of painting existent to-day.

1. DECORATIVE PAINTING.

2. EXPRESSIVE PAINTING.

Pure Decorative Painting is not usually expressive of ideas other than those of rhythmical line and harmonious color. It is not our subject. This volume treats of Expressive Painting; but in dealing with that it should be borne in mind that Expressive Painting has always a more or less decorative effect accompanying it, and that must be spoken of incidentally. We shall presently see the intermingling of both kinds of painting in the art of ancient Egypt--our first inquiry.

CHAPTER I.. Egyptian Painting.

EGYPTIAN PAINTING.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Brugsch, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs; Budge, Dwellers on the Nile; Duncker, History of Antiquity; Egypt Exploration Fund Memoirs; Ely, Manual of Archaeology; Lepsius, Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopen; Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria; Maspero, Guide du Visiteur au Musee de Boulaq; Maspero, Egyptian Archaeology; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt; Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.

LAND AND PEOPLE: Egypt, as Herodotus has said, is "the gift of the Nile," one of the latest of the earth's geological formations, and yet one of the earliest countries to be settled and dominated by man. It consists now, as in the ancient days, of the valley of the Nile, bounded on the east by the Arabian mountains and on the west by the Libyan desert. Well-watered and fertile, it was doubtless at first a pastoral and agricultural country; then, by its riverine traffic, a commercial country, and finally, by conquest, a land enriched with the spoils of warfare.

Its earliest records show a strongly established monarchy. Dynasties of kings called Pharaohs succeeded one another by birth or conquest. The king made the laws, judged the people, declared war, and was monarch supreme. Next to him in rank came the priests, who were not only in the service of religion but in that of the state, as counsellors, secretaries, and the like. The common people, with true Oriental lack of individuality, depending blindly on leaders, were little more than the servants of the upper classes.

The Egyptian religion existing in the earliest days was a worship of the personified elements of nature. Each element had its particular controlling god, worshipped as such. Later on in Egyptian history the number of gods was increased, and each city had its trinity of godlike protectors symbolized by the propylaea of the temples. Future life was a certainty, provided that the Ka, or spirit, did not fall a prey to Typhon, the God of Evil, during the long wait in the tomb for the judgment-day. The belief that the spirit rested in the body until finally transported to the aaln fields (the Islands of the Blest, afterward adopted by the Greeks) was one reason for the careful preservation of the body by mummifying processes. Life itself was not more important than death. Hence the imposing ceremonies of the funeral and burial, the elaborate richness of the tomb and its wall paintings. Perhaps the first Egyptian art arose through religious observance, and certainly the first known to us was sepulchral.

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