Man's inclination to decorate his belongings has always been one of the earliest signs of civilisation. Art had its beginning in the lines indented in clay, perhaps, or hollowed in the wood of family utensils; after that came crude colouring and drawing.

INTRODUCTION

I. Andrea del Sarto, Florentine School, 1486-1531

II. Michael Angelo (Buonarroti), Florentine School, 1475-1564

III. Arnold BÖcklin, Modern German School, 1827-1901

IV. Marie-Rosa Bonheur, French School, 1822-1899

V. Alessandro Botticelli, Florentine School, 1447-1510

VI. William Adolphe Bouguereau, French (Genre) School 1825-1905

VII. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, English (Pre-Raphaelite) School, 1833-1898

VIII. John Constable, English School, 1776-1837

IX. John Singleton Copley, English School, 1737-1815

X. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, Fontainebleau-Barbizon School, 1796-1875

XI. Correggio (Antonio Allegri), School of Parma, 1494(?)--1534

ANDREA DEL SARTO

Italian painters received their names in peculiar ways. This man's father was a tailor; and the artist was named after his father's profession. He was in fact "the Tailor's Andrea," and his father's name was Angelo.

One story of this brilliant painter which reads from first to last like a romance has been told by the poet, Browning, who dresses up fact so as to smother it a little, but there is truth at the bottom.

Andrea married a wife whom he loved tenderly. She had a beautiful face that seemed full of spirituality and feeling, and Andrea painted it over and over again. The artist loved his work and dreamed always of the great things that he should do; but he was so much in love with his wife that he was dependent on her smile for all that he did which was well done, and her frown plunged him into despair.

MICHAEL ANGELO (BUONARROTI)

This wonderful man did more kinds of things, at a time when almost all artists were versatile, than any other but one. Probably Leonardo da Vinci was gifted in as many different ways as Michael Angelo, and in his own lines was as powerful. This Florentine's life was as tragic as it was restless.

There is a tablet in a room of a castle which stands high upon a rocky mount, near the village of Caprese, which tells that Michael Angelo was born in that place. The great castle is now in ruins, and more than four hundred years of fame have passed since the little child was born therein.

ARNOLD BÖCKLIN

This splendid artist is so lately dead that it does not seem proper yet to discuss his personal history, but we can speak understandingly of his art, for we already know it to be great art, which will stand the test of time. His imagination turned toward subjects of solemn grandeur and his work is very impressive and beautiful.

He was born in Basel, "one of the most prosaic towns in Europe." His father was a Swiss merchant, and not poor; thus the son had ordinarily good chances to make an artist of himself. He was born at a time when to be an artist had long ceased to be a reproach, and men no longer discouraged their sons who felt themselves inspired to paint great pictures.

This picture is perhaps the greatest of the many great Arnold BÖcklin paintings, and it is both fascinating and awe-inspiring.

It best shows his liking for vertical lines in art. The Isle of the Dead is of a rocky, shaft-like formation in which we may see hewn-out tombs; and there, tall cypress trees are growing.

MARIE-ROSA BONHEUR

Rosa Bonheur, Landseer, and Murillo maybe called "Children's Painters" in this book because they painted things that children, as well as grown-ups, certainly can enjoy. To be sure, Murillo was a very different sort of artist from Rosa Bonheur or Landseer, but if the two latter painted the most beautiful, animals--dogs, sheep, and horses--Murillo painted the loveliest little children.

Rosa was the best pupil of her father; Raymond B. Bonheur. In Bordeaux they lived together the peaceful life of artists, the father being already a well known painter when his daughter was born. She became, as Mr. Hamerton, who knew her, said, "the most accomplished female painter who ever lived ... a pure, generous woman as well and can hardly be too much admired ... as a woman or an artist. She is simple in her tastes and habits of life and many stories are told of her generosity to others."

ALESSANDRO BOTTICELLI

Botticelli took his name from his first master, as was the fashion in those days. The relation of master and apprentice was very close, not at all like the relation of pupil and teacher to-day.

Botticelli's father was a Florentine citizen, Mariano Filipepi, and he wished his son to become a goldsmith; hence the lad was soon apprenticed to Botticelli, the goldsmith. As a scholar, the little goldsmith had not distinguished himself. Indeed it is said that as a boy he would not "take to any sort of schooling in reading, writing, or arithmetic." It cannot be said that this failure distinguished him as a genius, or the world would be full of genius-boys; but the result was that he early began to learn his trade.

In this picture we have the forerunner of a modern painter, because we see in it certain, qualities that we find in BÖcklin. Look at the effect of vertical lines; the tree trunks, and the poses of the slender women. Over all hovers a cupid who is sending love-shafts into the hearts of all in springtime.

WILLIAM ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU

Bouguereau's business-like father meant his son also to be business-like, but he made the mistake of permitting him to go to a drawing school in Bordeaux and there, to his father's chagrin, the youngster took the annual prize. After that there seemed nothing for the father to do but grin and bear it, because the son decided to be an artist and had fairly won his right to be one.

Young Bouguereau had no money, and therefore he went to live with an uncle at Saintonge, a priest, who had much sympathy with the boy's wish to paint, and he left him free to do the best he could for himself in art. He got a chance to paint some portraits, and when he and his uncle talked the matter over It was decided that he should take the money got for them, and go to Paris. It was there that he sought Picot, his first truly helpful teacher; and there, for the first time he learned more than he already knew about art.

The main distinction about this artist's pictured faces is the peculiarly earnest expression he has given to the eyes. In this picture of the Virgin there is great genius in the pose and death-look of the little child whose mother has flung herself across the lap of Mary, abandoned to her agony. This painting is hung in the Luxembourg. Others by the same master are called "Psyche and Cupid" "Birth of Venus," "Innocence," and "At the Well."

SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES

This artist has been called the most original of all contemporaneous artists. He has also been called the "lyric painter"; meaning that he is to painting what the lyric poet is to literature. His work once known can almost always be recognised wherever seen afterward. He did not slavishly follow the Pre-Raphaelite school, yet he drew most of his ideas from its methods. He was, in the use of stiff lines, a follower of Botticelli, and not original in that detail, as some have seemed to think.

JOHN CONSTABLE

John Constable was the son of a "yeoman farmer" who meant to make him also a yeoman farmer. Mostly we find that the fathers of our artists had no higher expectations for their sons than to have them take up their own business; to begin as they had, and to end as they expected to. But in John Constable's case, as with all the others, the father's methods of living did not at all please the son, and having most of all a liking for picture-making; young John set himself to planning his own affairs.

This picture was first called "Landscape," and it was painted in 1821. In his letters about it, however, Constable also called it "Noon," and others wrote of it as "Midsummer Noon." This tells us what a wealth of hot sunlight is suggested by the painting.

JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY

A little boy with a squirrel was the first picture that pointed this artist toward fame and that was painted in England and exhibited at the Society of Arts.

This American-born Irishman had no family or ancestry of account, but he himself was to become the father of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, and he did some truly fine things in art.

About the same time America had another painter, Benjamin West, marked out for fame, but he got his start in Europe while Copley had already become a successful artist before he left Boston, his native place.

He liked best to paint "interiors"--rooms with fine furniture and curtains, women in fine clothing and men in embroidered waistcoats and bejewelled buckles.

In this picture there are seven figures with an open landscape forming the background. The baby of the family plays, with uplifted arms, upon grandfather's knee. The mother on the couch, surrounded by her three other children, is kissing one while another clings to her. Before her stands a prim little maid, gowned in the fashion of grown-folks of her day. A little lock of hair falling upon her forehead suggests that when she was good she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid! She wears a little cap. At the back is the artist himself in a wig and other fashions of the time. A great column rises behind him, forming a part of the architecture or the landscape, one hardly knows which in so artificially constructed a picture.

Copley painted also John Hancock, Judge Graham, Jeremiah Lee, and General Joseph Warren.

JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT

About three hundred years before Corot's time there was a Fontainebleau school of artists, made up of the pathetic Andrea del Sarto, the wonderful Leonardo da Vinci, and Cellini. These painters had been summoned from their Italian homes by Francis I., to decorate the Palace of Fontainebleau. The second great group of painters who had studios in the forest and beside the stream were Rousseau, DuprÉ, Diaz, and Daubigny; Troyon, Van Marcke, Jacque; then Millet, the painter of peasants.

Corot was born in Paris and received what education the ordinary school at Rouen could give him. He was intended by his parents for something besides art, as it would seem that every artist in the world was intended. Corot was to grow up and become a respectable draper; at any rate a draper.

There could hardly be a more charming painting than this which hangs in the Louvre. It is of a half-shut-in landscape of tall trees, their branches mingling; and all the atmospheric effects that belong to Corot's work can here be seen.

On the open greensward is a group of nymphs dancing gaily, while over all the scene is the veil of fairy-land or of something quite mysterious. At the back and side, satyrs can be seen watching the nymphs. There is here less of the blur of leaves than that seen in later pictures, but the same soft effect is found, and the little "bings" are the accents of light placed upon a leaf, a nymph's shoulder, or a tree-trunk.

CORREGGIO (ANTONIO ALLEGRI)

When Correggio was a little boy, he lived in the odour of spices, which were kept upon his father's shop-shelves. He was a highly-spiced little boy and man, although the most timid and shrinking. His imagination was the liveliest possible.

The spice merchant lived in the town of Correggio, and thus the artist got his name. Correggio knew what should be inside the lovely flesh of his painted figures before he began to paint them, because he studied anatomy in a truly scientific manner before he studied painting. Probably no other artist up to that time, had ever begun with the bare bones of his models, but Correggio may be said to have worked from the inside out. He learned about the structure of the human frame from Dr. Giovanni Battista Lombardi, and showed his gratitude to his teacher by painting a picture "Il Medico del Correggio" (Correggio's Physician), and presenting it to Doctor Lombardi.

This painting is not characteristic of Correggio's work, but nevertheless it is very beautiful. The brilliant warm light which comes from the Infant Jesus in His mother's arms is reflected upon the faces of those gathered about, and even illuminates the angelic group hovering above him. The slight landscape forming the background is also suggestive, and the conditions of the birth are indicated by the ass which may be seen in the middle distance. The faces of all are joyous yet full of wonderment, the whole scene intimate and human.

The Infant Jesus sits upon His mother's lap, and places the ring upon St. Catherine's finger, while Mary's hand helps to guide that of her Child. This action brings the three hands close together and adds to the beauty of the composition. All of the faces are full of pleasure and kindliness, while that of St. Sebastian fairly glows with happy emotion. The light is concentrated upon the body of the Child and is reflected upon the faces of the women. This painting hangs in the Louvre.

PAUL GUSTAVE DORÉ

This artist died in Paris twenty-five years ago, but there is little as yet to be told of his life history. He was educated in Paris at the LycÉe Charlemagne, having gone there from Strasburg, where he was born.

He was a painter of fantastic and grotesque subjects, and as far as we know, he began his career when a boy. He made sketches before his eighth year which attracted much attention, and he earned considerable money while still at school. He was at that time engaged to illustrate for journals, at a good round sum, and before he left the LycÉe he had made hundreds of drawings, somewhat after the satirical fashion of Hogarth.

His work is very characteristic and once seen is likely to be always recognised.

He first worked for the Journal Pour Rire, but then he undertook to illustrate the work of Rabelais, the great satirist, whose text just suited DorÉ's pencil. After Rabelais he illustrated Balzac, also the "Wandering Jew," "Don Quixote," and Dante's "Divine Comedy."

This is one of the illustrations of the DorÉ Bible, published in 1865-66. The story is well known of how Moses went up into the Mount of the Lord to receive the laws for the Israelites, which were written upon tables of stone. Upon his descent from the Mount he found that his followers had set up a golden calf, which they were worshipping; and in his wrath Moses broke the tablets on which the Law was inscribed. The power shown in his attitude, the affrighted faces of the cowering Jews, the thunder and lightning as an expression of the wrath of the Almighty are all painted in DorÉ's best manner.

ALBRECHT DÜRER

Albrecht DÜrer by nationality was a Hungarian, but he was born in the city of Nuremberg. His father had come from the little Hungarian town of Eytas to Nuremberg that he might practise the craft of a goldsmith. Notwithstanding his Hungarian origin, the name is German and the family "bearing," or sign, is the open door. This device suggests that the name was first formed from "Thurer," which means "carpenter," maker of doors.

The father became the goldworker for a master goldsmith of Nuremberg named Hieronymus Holper, and very soon the new employee had fallen in love with his master's daughter. The daughter was very young and very beautiful; her name was Barbara, and as Herr DÜrer was quite forty years of age, while she was but fifteen, the match seemed most unlikely, but they married and had eighteen children! The great painter was one of them.

MARIANO FORTUNY

Fortuny won his own opportunities. He took a prize, while still very young, which made it possible for him to go to Rome where he wished to study art. He did not spend his time studying and copying the old masters as did most artists who went there, but, instead, he studied the life of the Roman streets.

He had already been at the Academy of Barcelona, but he did not follow his first master; instead, he struck out a line of art for himself. After a year in Rome the artist went to war; but he did not go to fight men, he was still fighting fate, and his weapon was his sketch book. He went with General Prim, and he filled his book with warlike scenes and the brilliant skies of Morocco. From that time his work was inspired by his Moorish experiences.

Fortuny is said to "split the light into a thousand particles, till his pictures sparkle like jewels and are as brilliant as a kaleidoscope.... He set the fashion for a class of pictures, filled with silks and satins, bric-À-brac and elegant trifling."

Look at the brilliant scene in this picture! The priest rising from his chair and leaning over the table is watching the bridegroom sign his name. This chap is an old fop, bedecked in lilac satin, while the bride is a dainty young woman, without much interest in her husband, for she is fingering her beautiful fan and gossiping with one of her girl friends. She wears orange-blossoms in her black hair and is in full bridal array. One couple, two men, sit on an elegantly carved seat and are looking at the goings-on with amusement, while an old gentleman sits quite apart, disgusted with the whole unimpressive scene. Everybody is trifling, and no one is serious for the occasion. The furnishings of the room are beautiful, delicate, almost frivolous. People are strewn about like flowers, and the whole effect is airy and inconsequent. Fortuny painted also "The Praying Arab," "A Fantasy of Morocco," "Snake Charmers," "Camels at Rest," etc.

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH

There seems to have been no artist, with the extraordinary exceptions of DÜrer and Leonardo, who learned his lessons while at school. Little painters have uniformly begun as bad spellers.

Gainsborough's father was in the business of woolen-crape making, while his mother painted flowers, very nicely, and it was she who taught the small Thomas. There were nine little Gainsboroughs and, shocking to relate, the artist of the family was so ready with his pencil that when he was ten years old he forged his father's name to a note which he took to the schoolmaster, and thereby gained himself a holiday. There is no account of any other wicked use to which he put his talent. It is said that he could copy any writing that he saw, and his ready pencil covered all his copy-books with sketches of his schoolmasters. It was thought better for him finally to follow his own ideas of education, namely, to roam the woodlands and make beautiful pictures.

This picture is now in the collection of Lord Rothschild, London. Mrs. Sheridan was the loveliest lady of her time. She was the daughter of Thomas Linley, and a singer.

She came from a home which was called "a nest of nightingales," because all in it were musicians. The father had a large family and made up his mind to become the best musician of his time in his locality in order to support them. He was successful, and in turn most of his children became musicians. His lovely daughter, Eliza (Mrs. Sheridan), he bound to himself as an apprentice and taught her till she was twenty-one, insisting that she "serve out her time" to him, that she might become a perfect singer. The story of this beautiful lady seems to belong to the story of Gainsborough's portrait and shall be told here.

JEAN LEON GEROME

One cannot write much more than the date of birth and death of a man who lived until three or four years of the time of writing, so we may only say that GÉrÔme was one of the most brilliant of modern French painters. He was born at Vesoul and his father was a goldsmith. Thus he probably had no very great difficulty in getting a start in his work. The prejudice against having an artist in the family was dying out, and as a prosperous goldsmith we may believe that his father had means enough to give his son good opportunities.

GÉrÔme, like Millet, studied under Delaroche, but became no such characteristic painter as he. While studying with Delaroche he also was taking the course in l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

His first exhibited picture was "The Cock Fight," and he won a third class medal by it.

This painting may be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The scene is full of action and interest, but perhaps the details of dress, mosaic decoration upon the walls, patterns of the rugs, the coloured and jewelled lamps and windows are the most splendidly painted of all.

The central figure is a dancing girl, only partly draped, balancing a sword on her head, while a brilliant green veil flies from head and face. Other Oriental women squat upon the floor watching her with a half indolent expression, while their Oriental masters and their friends sit in pomp at one side, absorbed in the dance and in the girl. The expressions upon all the faces are excellent and, the jewelled light that falls upon the group, the rich clothing, the grace of the dancer--all make a fascinating picture of a genre type. Other GÉrÔmes are "Daphnis and Chloe," "Leda," and "The Duel after the Masked Ball."

GHIRLANDAJO

It is a good deal of a name--Domenico di Tommaso di Currado Bigordi--and it would appear that the child who bore it was under obligation to become a good deal of a something before he died.

Italian and Spanish painters generally had large names to live up to, and the one known as Ghirlandajo did nobly.

His father was a goldsmith and a popular part of his work was the making of golden garlands for the hair of rich Italian ladies. His work was so beautiful that it gained for him the name of Ghirlandajo, meaning the garland-twiner, a name that lived after him, in the great art of his son. Domenico began as a worker in mosaic, a maker of pictures or designs with many coloured pieces of glass or stone.

Ghirlandajo's art was no improvement on that of his teacher, but he in turn became the teacher of Michael Angelo.

GIOTTO (DI BORDONE)

Giotto painted upon wood, and in "distemper"--the mixture of colour with egg or some other jelly-like substance. We know nothing of his childhood except that he was a shepherd, as we learn from a story told of him and his teacher, Cimabue.

The story runs that one day while Giotto was watching his sheep, high up on a mountain, Cimabue was walking abroad to study nature, and he ran across a shepherd boy who was drawing the figure of a sheep, with a piece of slate upon a stone. In those days we can imagine how rare it was to find one who could draw anything, ever so rudely. Immediately Cimabue saw a chance to make an artist and he asked the little shepherd if he would like to be taught art in his studio. Giotto was overjoyed at the opportunity, and at once he left the mountains for the town, the shepherd's crook for the brush.

FRANZ HALS

Franz Hals belonged to a family which for two hundred years had been highly respected in Haarlem in the Netherlands. The father of the painter left that town for political reasons in 1579, and it was at Antwerp that Franz was born sometime between that date and 1585. His parents took him back to Haarlem as an infant, and that is the town with which his name and fame are most closely associated.

Little is known of his early life except that he began his studies with Karel Van Mander and Cornelis Cornelissen. What we know of his family life is not to his credit. In the parish register of 1611 is recorded the birth of a son to Franz Hals and five years later he is on the public records for abusing his wife, who died shortly afterward. He married again within a year and the second wife bore him many children and survived him ten years. Five of his seven sons became painters.

Considering the woeful life that Franz Hals led, it is amazing to think that he of all artists is the best painter of good humour. He puts a smile on the face of nearly every one of his "leading characters," whether it be a modest young girl, a hideous old woman, a strolling musician, or a riotous soldier, and in every case the laugh suits the subject. It may have been his own easygoing shiftlessness, his way of casting care aside with a jest that enabled him to live so long and to accomplish so much in spite of his poverty and other misfortunes.

The roguish look upon the face of this baby of the house of Ilpenstein makes it appear older than the pleasant faced nurse. The dress of the child is such as Hals delighted to spend his talents upon. The picture is in the Berlin Gallery.

MEYNDERT HOBBEMA

When a man becomes famous many people claim his acquaintance, and often many places his birthplace. In Hobbema's case it has never been decided whether he was born in the little town of Koeverdam, or in the city of Haarlem or in Amsterdam. Nor is it quite certain when he was born; but what he did afterward, we are all acquainted with.

No one knows much about the life of this artist, but his master was doubtless his uncle, van Ruisdael. Hobbema was dead a hundred years before the world acknowledged his genius, thus he reaped no reward for hard work and ambition. He, like Rembrandt, died in great poverty, and with nearly the same surroundings. Rembrandt died forsaken in Roosegraft Street, Amsterdam, and Hobbema died in the same locality. We must speak chiefly about his work, since we know little of his personality or affairs.

This perhaps is one of the most characteristic of Hobbema's pictures. Note a strange hopelessness in the scene, as well as beauty. The tall and solemn trees, the high light upon the road, suggesting to us all sorts of joys struggling through the cheerlessness of life. What other artist would have chosen such a corner of nature for a subject to paint? To quote a fine description:

WILLIAM HOGARTH

William Hogarth, like Watteau, originated his own school; in short there never was anybody like him. He was an editorial writer in charcoal and paint, or in other words he had a story to tell every time he made a picture, and there was an argument in it, a right and a wrong, and he presented his point of view by making pictures.

English artists in literature and in painting have done some great reformatory work. Charles Dickens overthrew some dreadful abuses by writing certain novels. The one which has most interest for children is the awful story of Dotheboys' Hall, which exposed the ill treatment of pupils in a certain class of English schools. What Dickens and Charles Reade did in literature, Hogarth undertook to do in painting. He described social shams; painted things as they were, thus making many people ashamed and possibly better.

The picture used in illustration here is part of probably the very greatest art-sermon ever painted, called "Marriage À la Mode." The story of it is worth telling:

HANS HOLBEIN, THE YOUNGER

There were three generations of painters in the Holbein family, and the Hans of whom we speak was of the third. His grandfather was called "old Holbein," and when more painters of the same name and family came along it became necessary to distinguish them from each other thus: "old Holbein," the "elder Holbein," and "young Holbein." The first one was not much of an artist; still, in a locality where at best there was not much art he was good enough to be remembered.

"Young Holbein" was born in Augsburg, which is in Swabia, in southern Germany; "elder Holbein" and his father, Michael, "old Holbein," had moved there from Schonenfeld, a neighbouring village, about forty three years before little Hans was born, the old Michael bringing his family to the larger town where it was easier to make a living.

This is one of the best of the many splendid portraits Holbein painted. It hangs in The Hague gallery. The gentleman was forty-eight years old and in the portrait he wears a purplish-red doublet of silk and a black overcoat, which was the fashion of the day, all trimmed with fur. He has curly hair, just turning gray. His left hand is gloved and on it he holds his falcon, while with the other hand he strokes its feathers.

WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT

The story of the Pre-Raphaelites is all by itself a story of art. Holman Hunt was one of three who formed this "brotherhood"; and he, with one other, are the only ones whom some of us think worthy of giving a place in art. This is to be the story of the brotherhood rather than a story of one man.

GEORGE INNESS

George Inness was destined to keep a grocery store as his father had kept one before him, and had grown rich in it. When George was a young man he was given a grocery store in Newark, New Jersey, a very small store indeed, and it is not surprising that the young man preferred art to butter and eggs. The Inness family had just moved from Newburg, probably the elder Innes seeking in Newark a good location for his son's beginning.

The first art-work Inness did was engraving; as he had been apprenticed to that business, but afterward he studied with Gignoux, a pupil of Delaroche.

At that time there was what is known as the Hudson River School. Its ideas were set and formal, and not very inspiring, aside from the subjects treated. Church was then a young man like Inness, and he was studying in the Hudson River School, but the young grocer struck out a line for himself.

This picture in the George A. Hearn collection is full of the sense of restfulness that the works of this artist always convey. The trees are as motionless as the distant hills, and if the oxen are moving at all it is but slowly.

Some other Inness paintings are the "Georgia Pines," "Sunset on the Passaic," "The Wood Gatherers" and "After a Summer Shower."

SIR EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER

It is pleasant to speak of one artist whose good work began in the companionship of his father; the case of Edwin Landseer is most unusual.

His father was a skilful engraver who loved art, and encouraged the cultivation of it in his son, as other fathers of painters encouraged them to become priests or haberdashers or bakers, as the case might be. Little Landseer's beginning has been described by his father as he and a friend stood looking upon one of the scenes of his childhood:

CLAUDE LORRAIN (GELLEE)

Of all the contrasts between the early and later lives of great artists, Claude Lorrain gives us the most complete.

He was born to make pastry. His family may have been all pastry cooks, because people of Lorrain were famous for that work; anyway as a little chap he was apprenticed to one. His parents were poor, lived in the Duchy of Lorrain and from that political division the Artist was named.

The town in which he was born was Chamagne, and his real name was GellÉe. As a pastry cook's apprentice he served his time, and then, without any thought of becoming anything else in the world, he set off with several other pastry cooks to go to Rome, where their talents were to be well rewarded.

MASACCIO (TOMMASO GUIDI)

This artist, who lived and died within the century that witnessed the discovery of America, was famous for more than his painting. He was the original inventor who first learned and taught the mixing of colours with oils, thus making the peculiar "distemper" unnecessary.

The story of Italian artists includes a history of their names, for the Italians seem to have had most remarkable reasons for naming children. For example, this artist, Masaccio, was born on St. Thomas's day, hence, his name of Tommaso. Presently, for short, or for love, he was called Maso, and to cap all, being a careless lad, his friends added the derogatory "accio," and there we have the artist completely named. He owed nothing of this to his father, who was plain, or ornamentally, Ser Giovanni di Simone Guidi, of Castello San Giovanni, in the Valdamo.

Some of his known pictures are the frescoes in the church of St. Clemente in Rome; the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of the Carmine, "St. Peter Baptising" and the "Madonna and Child, with St. Anne," which is in the Accademia at Florence.

JEAN LOUIS ERNEST MEISSONIER

This artist was born at Lyons. His father was a salesman and an art-training seemed impossible for the young man because the Meissoniers were poor people. Nevertheless, he was so persevering that while still a young man he got to Paris and began to paint in the Louvre. He was but nineteen at that time, and his fate seemed so hard and bitter that later in life he refused to talk of those days.

He sat for many days in the Louvre, by Daubigny's side, painting pictures for which we are told he received a dollar a yard. We can think of nothing more discouraging to a genius than having to paint by the yard. It is said that his poverty permitted him to sleep only every other night, because he must work unceasingly, and someone declares that he lived at one time on ten cents a week. This is a frightful picture of poverty and distress.

JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET

Two great artists painted peasants and little else. One was the artist of whom we shall speak, and the other was Jules Breton. One was realistic, the other idealistic. Both did wonderful work, but Millet painted the peasant, worn, patient steadfast, overwhelmed with toil; Breton, a peasant full of energy, grace, vitality, and joy.

CLAUDE MONET

Another--Manet--was the founder of this school among modern painters, but Monet is always considered his most conspicuous follower.

Monet's remarkable method of putting his colours upon canvas does not mean impressionism. He is an impressionist but also Monet--an artist with a method entirely different from that of any other. He belongs to what in France is called the pointillistes. The word means nothing more nor less than an effort to accomplish the impossible. If you stand a little way from a very hot stove you may be able to see a kind of movement in the air, a quivering of particles or molecular motion, and this is what the pointillistes try to show in their paintings--Monet most of all.

MURILLO (BARTOLOME ESTEBAN)

The story of Murillo has been delightfully told by Mrs. Sarah Bolton.

Like Velasquez, he was born in Seville, a city called "the glory of the Spanish realms," and was baptised on New Year's day, 1618, in the Church of the Magdalen.

Besides the little angels in this picture, we have a bewildering choice among many other beauties.

It was said of Raphael that "every evil humour vanished when his comrades saw him, every low thought fled from their minds"; and this was because they felt themselves vanquished by his pleasant ways and sweet nature.

Imagine his beautiful face, with its sunny eyes, reflecting no shadow of sadness or pain. Such a one was sure to be beloved by all.

It is said that the "Sistine Madonna," while painted from an Italian model--doubtless the lady whom Raphael so dearly loved--has universal characteristics, so that she may "be understood by everyone."

He lived only three years after painting this picture and it was the last "Holy Family" painted by him. The Madonna stands upon a curve of the earth, which is scarcely to be seen, and looming mistily in front of her is a mass of white vaporous clouds. On either side are figures, St. Sixtus (for whom the picture was named) and St. Barbara. Beside St. Sixtus we see a crown or tiara; and the little tower at St. Barbara's side is a part of her story.

REMBRANDT (VAN RIJN)

Here are a few of the titles that have been given to the greatest Dutch painter that ever lived: The Shakespeare of Painting; the Prince of Etchers; the King of Shadows; the Painter of Painters. Muther calls him a "hero from cloudland," and not only does he alone wear these titles of greatness, but he alone in his family had the name of Rembrandt.

One writer has said that the great painter was born "in a windmill," but this is not true. He was born in Leyden for certain, though not a great deal is known about his youth; and his father was a miller, his mother a baker's daughter.

When the Pilgrim Fathers, who had sought safety in Leyden, were starting for America, where they were going to oppress others as they had been oppressed, Rembrandt was just beginning his apprenticeship in art.

This picture is generally known as "The Night Watch," but it is really "The Sortie" of a company of musketeers under the command of a standard bearer. Captain Frans Banning-Cock and all his company were to pay Rembrandt for painting their portraits in a group and in action, and they expected to see themselves in heroic and picturesque dress, in the full blaze of day, but Rembrandt had found a magnificent subject for his wonderful shadows, and the artist was not going to sacrifice it to the vanity of the archers.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

When Reynolds was "little Josh," instead of "Sir Joshua" he grew tired in church one day, and sketched upon the nail of his thumb the portrait of the Rev. Mr. Smart who was preaching. After service he ran to a boat-house near, and with ship's paint, upon an old piece of sail, he painted in full and flowing colours that reverend gentleman's portrait. After that there was not the least possible excuse for his father to deny him the right to become an artist.

The father himself was a clergyman with a good education, and he had meant that his son should also be well educated and become a physician; but a lad who at eight years of age can draw the Plympton school house--he was born at Plympton Earl, in Devonshire--has a right to choose his own profession.

PETER PAUL RUBENS.

The story of Peter Paul Rubens, whose birthday falling upon the saint days of Peter and Paul gave to him his name, is hardly more interesting than that of his parents, although it is quite different. The story of Rubens's parents seems a part of the artist's story, because it must have had something to do with influencing his life, so let us begin with that.

John Rubens was Peter Paul's father, and he was a learned man, a druggist, but he had also studied law, and had been town councillor and alderman in the town where he was born. Life went easily enough with him till the reformation wrought by Martin Luther began to change John Rubens's way of thinking, and he turned from Catholic to Lutheran.

This picture hangs in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna; the two boys, eleven and seven years of age, are the sons of Rubens by his first wife, Isabella Brant; and Albert, the elder of the two, greatly resembles his mother. He is evidently a student, for he wears the dress of one and carries a book in one hand. The other is placed affectionately upon the shoulder of his little brother, Nicolas, whose face, figure, and attire are all much the more childish of the two.

JOHN SINGER SARGENT

This artist was born in Europe, of American parents; thus we may say that he was "American," though he owed nothing but dollars to the United States, since his instruction was obtained in Italy and France, and all his associations in art and friendship were there. He was probably the most brilliant of the artists termed American. His great mural work in the Boston Public Library, is hardly to be surpassed.

Above all, Sargent's portraits are masterly. He was famous in that branch of art before he was twenty-eight years old. Among his finest portraits is that of "Carmencita," a Spanish dancer, who for a time set the world wild with pleasure. The list of his famous portraits is very long.

In this picture of the famous Spanish dancer Sargent shows all the life and character he can put into a portrait. The girl seems on the point of springing into motion. She is poised, ready for flight and the proud lift of her head makes one believe that she will accomplish the most difficult steps she attempts. The painting is in the Luxembourg, Paris.

Other noted Sargent portraits are "Mr. Marquand" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Lady Elcho, Mrs. Arden, Mrs. Tennant," "Mrs. Meyer and Children," "Homer St. Gaudens," "Henschel," and "Mr. Penrose."

TINTORETTO (JACOPO ROBUSTI)

Tintoretto was born with an ideal. As a young boy he wrote upon his studio wall: "The drawing of Michael Angelo, the colouring of Titian," and that was the end he tried to reach. His father was a "tintore"--a dyer of silk, a tinter--and it was from the character of that work the artist took his name. He helped his father with the dyeing of silks, while he was still a child, and was called "II tintoretto," little dyer.

As the little tinter showed great genius for painting, his father placed him in Titian's studio, but for some reason he only stayed there a few days, long enough, however, to permit us to call him a pupil of Titian; especially as he wrote that master's name upon his wall and determined to imitate him. After his few days with Titian, Tintoretto studied with Schiavone and afterward set up a studio for himself.

TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLI)

Titian was a child of the Tirol Mountains, handsome, strong, full of health and fine purposes, even as a boy. He was born in a little cottage at Pieve, in the valley of Cadore, through which flows the River Piave; and he wandered daily beside its banks, gathering flowers from which he squeezed the juices to paint with. When he grew up he became a wonderful colourist, and from his boyhood nothing so much delighted him as the brilliant colours flaunted by the flowers of wood and field.

Previous to the time of Titian, it had been the custom to paint portraits of beautiful ladies merely to their waists, just far enough to show their hands. He went further, and produced "knee portraits," which gave him an opportunity to paint their gorgeous gowns as well. He has done so in making this picture of his daughter Lavinia, probably just before her marriage to Cornelio Sarcinelli which took place in 1555. She is attired in gold-coloured brocade with pearls about her neck. Her dress, combined with the dish of fruit she holds so high, gives Titian the colour effects he always sought. A yellow lemon is specially striking, and the red curtain to the left harmonises with the whole. The uplift of the arms and the turn of the head give the desired amount of action. It is not Titian's customary style of work; he seldom did anything so intimate and personal, and the picture is the more interesting on that account. It is in the Berlin Gallery.

Some of Titian's famous pictures are: his own portrait; "Flora," "Holy Family and St. Bridget," "The Last Judgment," "The Entombment," "The Magdalene," "Bacchanal," "St. Sebastian," "Bacchus and Ariadne," and "The Sleeping Venus."

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER

If the occupation of a shepherd produced a poet, no less did an artist of the first water come out of a barber shop. Turner's father was a jolly little fellow who dressed hair for English dandies and did all of those things which in those days fell to men of his profession. It was in this little shop that the great artist grew up. Father Turner was ambitious for his son, who was anxious to study art. The less said of the artist's mother the better, for she was a termagant and finally went crazy, so that the father and his little boy were soon left alone, to plan and work and strive to make each other happy. The pair were never apart.

This was the picture which Turner loved best of all, the one he would never sell; but at his death ho gave it to the English nation.

"Many years before he painted it, he had gone down to Portsmouth one day to see Nelson's fleet come in after the glorious victory of Trafalgar. The TÉmÉraire was pointed out to him--a battle ship that had very proudly borne the English flag, for during the battle it had run in between two French frigates and captured them both.

SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK

Anthony Van Dyke's father was neither a gentleman nor an ill-born person. He was "betwixt-and-between," being a silk merchant, who met so many fine folk that he seemed to be "fine folk" himself; and by the time Anthony had grown up, he actually believed himself to be one of them. If manners stand for fineness Sir Anthony must have been superfine, because he was almost overburdened with "manners."

He became a wonderful, be-laced, perfumed, shiny gentleman who never stooped to paint anything less than royalty and its associates, nor in anything less than velvets and laces. Like Rembrandt and Gainsborough, he set a fashion--or rather the style in which he painted came to be known after his name. We are all familiar with the kind of ornamentation on clothes called Van Dyck--pointed lace, or trimmings--and pointed beards.

VELASQUEZ (DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA)

It is pretty difficult to find out why a man was named so-and-so in the days of the early Italian and Spanish painters. More likely than not they would be called after the master to whom they had been first apprenticed; or after their trade; after the town from which they came, and rarely because their father had had the name before them. In Velasquez's case, he was named after his mother.

No one seemed to be certain what to call him, but he generally wrote his name "Diego de Silva Velasquez." His father was Rodriguez de Silva, a lawyer, but in calling the boy Velasquez the family followed a universal Spanish custom of naming children after their mothers.

Philip of Spain had long prayed for a son and when at last one was granted him his pride in his young heir was unbounded. The little Don Carlos was not unworthy, for he was a cheerful, hearty boy, trained to horsemanship, from his fourth year, for his father was a noted rider and had the best instructors for his son. The prince was a brave hunter too and we are told that he shot a wild boar when he was but nine years of age. In this portrait which is in the Museo del Prado he is six years old, and it was neither the first nor the last that Velasquez made of him. It was one of the court painter's chief duties to see that the heir to the throne was placed upon canvas at every stage of his career, and he painted him from two years of age till his lamented death at sixteen.

PAUL VERONESE (PAOLO CAGLIARI)

"One has never done well enough, when one can do better; one never knows enough when he can learn more!"

This was the motto of Paul Veronese. This artist was born in Verona--whence he took his name--and spent much of his life with the monks in the monastery of St. Sebastian.

His father was a sculptor, and taught his son. Veronese himself was a lovable fellow, had a kind feeling for all, and in return received the good will of most people. When he first went to Venice to study he took letters of introduction to the monks of St. Sebastian, and finally went to live with them, for his uncle was prior of the monastery, and it was upon its walls that he did his first work in Venice. His subject was the story of Esther, which he illustrated completely.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo da Vinci was the natural son of a notary, Ser Pier, and he was born at the Castello of Vinci, near Empoli. From the very hour that he was apprenticed to his master, Verrocchio, he proved that he was the superior of his master in art. Da Vinci was one of the most remarkable men who ever lived, because he not only did an extraordinary number of things, but he did all of them well.

He was an engineer, made bridges, fortifications, and plans which to this day are brilliant achievements.

He was a sculptor, and as such did beautiful work.

He was a naturalist, and as such was of use to the world.

He was an author and left behind him books written backward, of which he said that only he who was willing to devote enough study to them to read them in that form, was able to profit by what he had written.

This, as we have said, is in the former convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. It was the first painted story of this legendary event in which natural and spontaneous action on the part of all the company was presented.

JEAN ANTOINE WATTEAU

Watteau's father was a tiler in a Flemish town--Valenciennes. He meant that his son should be a carpenter, but that son tramped from Valenciennes to Paris with the purpose of becoming a great painter. He did more, he became a "school" of painting, all by himself.

There is no sadder story among artists than that of this lowly born genius. He was not good to look upon, being the very opposite of all that he loved, having no grace or charm in appearance. He had a drooping mouth, red and bony hands, and a narrow chest with stooping shoulders. Because of a strange sensitiveness he lived all his life apart from those he would have been happy with, for he mistrusted his own ugliness, and thought he might be a burden to others.

Such a man has painted the gayest, gladdest, most delicate and exquisite pictures imaginable.

This exquisite picture displays nearly all the characteristics of Watteau's painting. He was said to paint with "honey and gold," and his method was certainly remarkable. His clear, delicate colours were put upon a canvas first daubed with oil, and he never cleaned his palette. His "oil-pot was full of dust and dirt and mixed with the washings of his brush." One would think that only the most slovenly results could come from such habits of work, but the artist made a colour which no one could copy, and that was a sort of creamy, opalescent white. This was original with Watteau, and most beautiful.

In this "FÊte ChampÊtre," which is now in the National Gallery at Edinburgh, he paints an elegant group of ladies and gentlemen indulging in an open air dance of some sort. One couple are doing steps facing one another, to the music of a set of pipes, while the rest flirt and talk, decorously, round about. There is no boisterous rusticity here; all is dainty and refined.

The same characteristics are to be found in Watteau's other pictures such as, "Embarkation for the Island of Cythera," "The Judgment of Paris," and "Gay Company in a Park."

SIR BENJAMIN WEST

The beautiful smile of his little niece helped to make this man an artist. This is the story:

Benjamin West was born down in Pennsylvania, at Westdale, a small village in the township of Springfield, of Quaker parentage. The family was poor perhaps, but in America at a time when everybody was struggling with a new civilisation it did not seem to be such binding poverty as the same condition in Europe would have been. Benjamin had a married sister whose baby he greatly loved, and he gave it devoted attention. One day while it was sleeping and the undiscovered artist was sitting beside it he saw it smile, and the beauty of the smile inspired him to keep it forever if he could. He got paper and pencil and forthwith transferred that "angel's whisper."

About, Edmund
Academia, Florence
Academy, French
    Rome,
    Royal, London,
    Venice
"Acis and Galatea"
Adoration of the Magi
"Adoration of the Shepherds"
"After a Summer Shower"
"Afternoon"
Albert, King
"Alessandro del Borro"
Alexander VI.
Alice, Princess
Allegri, Antonio. See Correggi
Allegri, Pompino
"Ambassadors, The"
"American Mustangs"
"Anatomy Lesson, The"
Andrea del Sarto
Angelo, Michael
"Angels' Heads"
"Angelas, The"
Anguisciola, Sofonisba
Anne of Cleves
Anne of Saxony
Annunciata, cloister of the
"Annunciation, The"
"Ansidei Madonna, The"
"Antiope"
Apocalypse
Apollo Belvedere
Apostles, the Four
Apostles' Heads
Appelles
"Archipelago"
Arena Chapel
Arrivabene Chapel
"Artist's Two Sons, The"
"Arundel Castle and Mill"
"Assumption of the Virgin"
"At the Well"
Audran
Augusta, Princess
"Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland"
"Awakened Conscience, The"