without possessing a touch of his gigantic genius. In other
parts of Italy, such as Pavia, the traditions of the 15th century
lasted longer, though gradually fading. The Statuary and reliefs
which make the Certosa near Pavia one of the most gorgeous
buildings in the world are free from the influence of Michelangelo,
which at Florence and Rome was overwhelming. Though much
of the sculpture was begun in the second half of the 15th century,
the greater part was not executed till much later. The magnificent
tomb of the founder, Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, was not
completed till about 1560, and is a gorgeous example of the
style of the Renaissance grown weak from excess of richness
and from loss of the simple purity of the art of the 15th century.
Everywhere in this wonderful building the fault is the same;
and the growing love of luxury and display, which was the
curse of the time, is reflected in the plastic decorations of the whole
church. The old religious spirit had died out and was succeeded
by unbelief or by an affected revival of paganism. Monuments
to ancient Romans, such as those to the two Plinys on the façade
of Como cathedral, or “heroa” to unsaintly mortals, such as
that erected at Rimini by Sigismondo Pandolfo in honour of
Isotta,[1] grew up side by side with shrines and churches dedicated
to the saints. We have seen how the youthful vigour of the
Christian faith vivified for a time the dry bones of expiring
classic art, and now the decay of this same belief brought
with it the destruction of all that was most valuable in medieval
sculpture. Sculpture, like the other arts, became the bond-slave
of the rich, and ceased to be the natural expression of a whole
people. Though for a long time in Italy great technical skill
continued to exist, the vivifying spirit was dead, and at last a
dull scholasticism or a riotous extravagance of design became
the leading characteristics.
The 16th century was one of transition to this state of degradation, but nevertheless produced many sculptors of great ability who were not wholly crushed by the declining taste of their time. John of Douai (1524–1608), usually known as Giovanni da Bologna, one of the ablest, lived and worked almost entirely in Italy. His bronze statue of Mercury flying upwards, in the Uffizi, one of his finest works, is full of life and movement. By him also is the “Carrying off of a Sabine Woman” in the Loggia de’ Lanzi. His great fountain at Bologna, with two tiers of boys and mei-maids, surmounted by a colossal statue of Neptune, a very noble work, is composed of architectural features combined with sculpture, and is remarkable for beauty of proportion. He also cast the fine bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo de Medici at Florence and the very richly decorated west door of Pisa cathedral, the latter notable for the overcrowding of its ornaments and the want of sculpturesque dignity in the figures; it is a feeble imitation of Ghiberti’s noble production. One of Giovanni’s best works, a group of two nude figures fighting, is now lost. A fine copy in lead existed till recently in the front quadrangle of Brasenose College, Oxford, of which it was the chief ornament. In 1881 it was sold for old lead by the principal and fellows of the college, and was immediately melted down by the plumber who bought it—an irreparable loss, as the only other existing copy is very inferior; the destruction was an utterly inexcusable act of vandalism. The sculpture on the western façade of the church at Loreto and the elaborate bronze gates of the Santa Casa are works of great technical merit by Girolamo Lombardo and his sons, about the middle of the 16th century. Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1569), though in the main greater as goldsmith than as sculptor, produced one work of great beauty and dignity—the bronze Perseus in the Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence. His large bust of Cosimo de’ Medici in the Bargello is mean and petty in style. A number of very clever statues and groups in terra-cotta were modelled by Antonio Begarelli of Modena (d. 1565), and were enthusiastically admired by Michelangelo; the finest are a “Pieta” in S. Maria Pomposa and a large “Descent from the Cross” in S. Francesco, both at Modena. The colossal bronze seated statue of Julius III. at Perugia, cast in 1555 by Vincenzio Danti, is one of the best portrait-figures of the time.
The latter part of the 15th century in France was a time of transition from the medieval style, which had gradually been deteriorating, to the more fiorid and realistic taste of the Renaissance. To this period belong a number of rich reliefs and statues on the choir-screen of Chartres cathedral. Those on The Renaissance in France.the screen at Amiens are later still, and exhibit the rapid advance of the new style.
The transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance is to be noted in many tomb monuments of the second half of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, notably in Rouland de Roux’s magnificent tomb of the cardinals of Amboise at Rouen cathedral. Italian motifs are paramount in the great tomb of Louis XII. and his wife Anne of Bretagne, at St Denis, by Jean Iuste of Tours.
The influx of Italian artists into France in the reign of Francis I., who, with Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, and Primaticcio, had summoned Benvenuto Cellini and other Italian sculptors to his court, naturally led to the practical extinction of the Gothic style, though isolated examples of medievalism still occur about the The Italian influence. middle of the 16th century. Such are the “Entombment” in the crypt of Bourges cathedral, and the tomb of René of Chalons in the church of St Etienne at Bar-le-Duc. But the main current of artistic thought followed the direction indicated by the founding of the italianizing school of Fontainebleau. lean Goujon, (d. 1572) was the, ablest French sculptor of the time; he combined great technical skill and refinement of modelling with the florid and affected style of the age. His nude figure of “Diana reclining by a Stag,” now in the Louvre, is a graceful and vigorous piece of work, superior in sculpturesque breadth to the somewhat similar bronze relief of a nymph by Cellini. Between 1540 and 1552 Goujon executed the fine monument at Rouen to Duke Louis de Brézé, and from 1555 to 1562 was mainly occupied in decorating the Louvre with sculpture. One of the most pleasing and graceful works of this period, thoroughly Italian in style, is the marble group of the “Three Graces” bearing on their heads an urn containing the heart of Henry II., executed in 1560 by Germain Pilon for Catherine de Médicis. The monument of Catherine and Henry II. at St Denis, by the same sculptor, is an inferior and coarser work. Maître Ponce, probably the same as the Italian Ponzio Jacquio, chisel led the noble monument of Albert of Carpi (1535), now in the Louvre. Another very fine portrait effigy of about 1570, a recumbent figure in full armour of the duke of Montmorency, preserved in the Louvre, is the work of Barthelemy Prieur. François Duquesnoy of Brussels (1594–1644), usually known as Il Fiammingo, was a clever sculptor, thoroughly French in style, though he mostly worked in Italy. His large statues are very poor, but his reliefs in ivory of boys and cupids are modelled with wonderfully soft realistic power and graceful fancy.
To these sculptors should be added Jacques Sarrazin, well known for the colossal yet elegant caryatides for the grand pavilion of the Louvre; and François Augier, the sculptor of the splendid mausoleum of the duc de Montmorency.
In the Netherlands the great development of painting was not accompanied by a parallel movement in plastic art. Of the few monuments that claim attention, we must mention the bronze tomb of Mary of Burgundy at Notre-Dame, Bruges, executed about 1495 by Jan de Baker, and the less remarkable The Netherlands.though technically more complete companion tomb of Charles the Bold (1558).
The course of the Renaissance movement in German sculpture differs from that of most other countries in so far as it appears to grow gradually out of the Gothic style in the direction of individual, realistic treatment of the figure which in late Gothic days had become somewhat conventional and schematic and idealized. Marked Beginning of the Renaissance in Germany. physiognomic expression, careful rendering of movement, costume and details, and the suggestion of different textures, together with almost tragic emotional intensity, are the chief aims of the 15th-century sculptors who, on the whole,
- ↑ See Yriarte, Rimini au XVᵉ siècle (Paris, 1880).
