Painting

Portrait frontispiece. An oil painting in The Hall of the Portraits of Old Masters, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The authorship of the painting is not certainly known. Symonds says that "it may perhaps be ascribed with some show of probability to Bugiardini." Bugiardini was a friend of Michelangelo's youth and a fellow student in the gardens of the Medici. That later in life he painted a portrait of his distinguished friend we know from Vasari.

In Michelangelo's statue of Moses the great Hebrew leader is represented at the height of his career. He was a prophet, a poet, a military commander, and a statesman. The story of his life will show how all these qualities could be combined in one person.

IN CONNECTION WITH THE SEVERAL WORKS HERE REPRESENTED.

The Madonna and Child and the Holy Family:—

David:—

Cupid:—

The pictures we have thus far studied in this collection are reproductions of works of sculpture. This is the art which Michelangelo loved best. He was, however, a painter also, and in the later years of his life he was even drawn into architecture. Painting was the first art he studied, but he soon laid it aside for sculpture, and after that returned to it from time to time throughout his life.

(Based on Symonds' Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti, to which the accompanying notes on pages refer.)

In the busy years of Christ's ministry we do not read of his often being with his mother Mary. He was going about the country preaching and healing, and gave himself wholly to his mission. Yet we know that the love between mother and son was constant and unchanging. From beginning to end she always had confidence in his power, and his tender care for her was among his last thoughts.

At the beginning of the Renaissance painting was almost wholly confined to the Church. From the Church it extended to the Council Hall, and thence to the Schools. There it rapidly developed into an art which had no higher aim than painting the sumptuous life of the aristocracy. When it had reached this point, there was no reason whatever why it should not begin to grace the dwellings of all well-to-do people.

Bassano appealed to collectors by mere accident. He certainly did not work for them. The painters who came after him and after Tintoretto no longer worked unconsciously, as Veronese did, nor for the whole intelligent class, as Titian and Tintoretto had done, but for people who prided themselves on their connoisseurship.

Giorgione created a demand which other painters were forced to supply at the risk of finding no favour. The older painters accommodated themselves as best they could. One of them indeed, turning toward the new in a way that is full of singular charm, gave his later works all the beauty and softness of the first spring days in Italy. Upon hearing the title of one of Catena's works in the National Gallery, "A Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ," who could imagine what a treat the picture itself had in store for him?