,,masterpieces ,,in ,,colour ,,edited ,,by--,t4 ,,leman ,,hare ,,bernardino ,,luini ,,in ,,the ,,same ,,series ,,artist4 ,,author4 ,,velazquez4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,reynolds4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,turner4 ,c4 ,,lewis ,,hind4 ,,romney4 ,c4 ,,lewis ,,hind4 ,,greuze4 ,,alys ,,eyre ,,macklin4 ,,botticelli4 ,,henry ,b4 ,,binns4 ,,rossetti4 ,,lucien ,,pissarro4 ,,bellini4 ,,george ,,hay4 ,,fra ,,angelico4 ,,james ,,mason4 ,,rembrandt4 ,,josef ,,israels4 ,,leighton4 ,a4 ,,lys ,,baldry4 ,,raphael4 ,,paul ,g4 ,,konody4 ,,holman ,,hunt4 ,,mary ,e4 ,,coleridge4 ,,titian4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,millais4 ,a4 ,,lys ,,baldry4 ,,carlo ,,dolci4 ,,george ,,hay4 ,,gainsborough4 ,,max ,,rothschild4 ,,tintoretto4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,luini4 ,,james ,,mason4 ,,franz ,,hals4 ,,edgcumbe ,,staley4 ,in ,preparation ,,van ,,dyck4 ,,percy ,m4 ,,turner4 ,,whistler4 ,t4 ,,martin ,,wood4 ,,leonardo ,,da ,,vinci4 ,m4 ,w4 ,,brockwell4 ,,rubens4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,burne-,,jones4 ,a4 ,,lys ,,baldry4 ,j4 ,f4 ,,millet4 ,,percy ,m4 ,,turner4 ,,chardin4 ,,paul ,g4 ,,konody4 ,,fragonard4 ,c4 ,,haldane ,,macfall4 ,,holbein4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,boucher4 ,c4 ,,haldane ,,macfall4 ,,vig,e ,,le ,,brun4 ,c4 ,,haldane ,,macfall4 ,,watteau4 ,c4 ,,lewis ,,hind4 ,,murillo4 ,s4 ,l4 ,,bensusan4 ,,and ,,others4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,i4--,,madonna ,,and ,,child4 ,frontispiece 7,in the ,wallace ,collection7 ,this is another admirably painted study of the artist's favourite subject4 ,the attitude of the child is most engaging1 the painting of the limbs is full of skill1 and the background adds considerably to the picture's attractions4 ,it will be noted that ,luini appears to have employed the same model for most of his studies of the ,madonna4 ,bernardino ,,luini ,,by ,,james ,,mason ,,illustrated ,,with ,,eight ,,reproductions ,,in ,,colour ,illustration ,,london3 ,t4 ,c4 ,e4 ,c4 ,,jack ,,new ,,york3 ,,frederick ,a4 ,,stokes ,,co4 ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,plate ,i4 ,madonna and ,child ,frontispiece ,in the ,wallace ,collection ,page ,,ii4 ,il ,salvatore #ad ,in the ,ambrosiana1 ,milan ,,iii4 ,salom and the ,head of ,st4 ,john the ,baptist #bd ,in the ,uffizi ,gallery1 ,florence ,,iv4 ,the ,mystic ,marriage of ,st4 ,catherine #cd ,in the ,brera1 ,milan ,v4 ,the ,madonna of the ,rose #dj ,in the ,brera1 ,milan ,,vi4 ,detail of ,fresco #ej ,in the ,brera1 ,milan ,,vii4 ,head of ,virgin #fj ,in the ,ambrosiana1 ,milan ,,viii4 ,burial of ,st4 ,catherine #gj ,in the ,brera1 ,milan ,illustration ,i ,a ,,retrospect ,in the beginning of the long and fascinating history of ,italian ,art we see that the spirit of the ,renaissance first fluttered over the minds of men much as the spirit of life is said have moved over the face of the waters before the first chapter of creation's marvellous story was written4 ,beginnings were small1 progress was slow1 and the lives of the great artists moved very unevenly to their appointed end4 ,there were some who rose to fame and fortune during their life1 and then died so completely that no biography can hope to rouse any interest in their work among succeeding generations4 ,there were others who worked in silence and without rclame of any sort1 content with the respect and esteem of those with whom they came into immediate contact1 indifferent to the plaudits of the crowd or the noisy praises of those who are not qualified to judge4 ,true servants of the western world's religion1 they translated work into terms of moral life1 and moral life into terms of work4 ,merit like truth will out1 and when time has sifted good work from bad and spurious reputations from genuine ones1 many men who fluttered the dovecotes of their own generation disappear from sight altogether2 some others who wrought unseen1 never striving to gain the popular ear or eye1 rise on a sudden to heights that might have made them giddy had they lived to be conscious of their own elevation4 ,they were lowly1 but their fame inherits the earth4 ,bernardino ,luini1 the subject of this little study1 calls us away from the great art centres--from ,venice and ,florence and ,rome2 his record was made and is to be found to-day amid the plains of ,lombardy4 ,milan is not always regarded as one of the great art centres of ,italy in spite of the ,brera1 the ,ambrosiana1 and the ,poldi ,pezzoli ,palace collections1 but no lover of pictures ever went for the first time to the galleries of ,milan in a reverent spirit and with a patient eye without feeling that he had discovered a painter of genius4 ,he may not even have heard his name before1 but he will come away quite determined to learn all he may about the man who painted the wonderful frescoes that seem destined to retain their spiritual beauty till the last faint trace of the design passes beyond the reach of the eye1 the man who painted the panel picture of the ,virgin of the ,rose ,trees1 reproduced with other of his master-works in these pages4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,ii4--,,il ,,salvatore 7,in the ,ambrosiana1 ,milan7 ,this picture1 one of the treasures of the beautiful collection in the ,pinacoteca of ,ambrosiana in the ,piazza della ,rosa1 hangs by the same artist's picture of ,john the ,baptist as a ,child4 ,the right hand of ,christ is raised in the attitude of benediction1 and the head has a curiously genuine beauty4 ,the preservation of this picture is wonderful1 the colouring retains much of its early glow4 ,the head is almost feminine in its tenderness and bears a likeness to ,luini's favourite model4 ,to go to the ,brera is to feel something akin to hunger for the history of ,bernardino ,luini or ,luino or ,luvino as he is called by the few who have found occasion to mention him1 although perhaps ,luini is the generally accepted and best known spelling of the name4 ,unfortunately the hungry feeling cannot be fully satisfied4 ,catalogues or guide books date the year of ,luini's birth at or about #adgj1 and tell us that he died in #aecc1 and as this is a period that ,giorgio ,vasari covers1 we turn eagerly to the well-remembered volumes of the old gossip hoping to find some stories of the ,lombard painter's life and work4 ,we are eager to know what manner of man ,luini was1 what forces influenced him1 how he appeared to his contemporaries1 whether he had a fair measure of the large success that attended the leading artists of his day4 ,were his patrons great men who rewarded him as he deserved--how did he fare when the evening came wherein no man may work8 ,surely there is ample scope for the score of quaint comments and amusing if unreliable anecdotes with which ,vasari livens his pages4 ,we are confident that there will be much to reward the search1 because ,bernardino ,luini and ,giorgio ,vasari were contemporaries after a fashion4 ,vasari would have been twenty-one years old when ,luini died1 the writer of the ,lives would have seen frescoes and panel pictures in all the glory of their first creation4 ,he could not have failed to be impressed by the extraordinary beauty of the artist's conceptions1 the skill of his treatment of single figures1 the wealth of the curious and elusive charm that we call atmosphere--a charm to which all the world's masterpieces are indebted in varying degrees--the all-pervading sense of a delightful and refined personality1 leaves us eager for the facts that must have been well within the grasp of the painter's contemporaries4 ,alas for these expectations6 ,vasari dismisses ,bernardino del ,lupino1 as he calls him1 in six or eight sentences1 and what he says has no biographical value at all4 ,the reference reads suspiciously like what is known in the world of journalism as padding4 ,indeed1 as ,vasari was a fair judge1 and ,bernardino ,luini was not one of those ,venetians whom ,vasari held more or less in contempt1 there seems to be some reason for the silence4 ,perhaps it was an intimate and personal one1 some unrecorded bitterness between the painter and one of ,vasari's friends1 or between ,vasari himself and ,luini or one of his brothers or children4 ,whatever the cause there is no mistake about the result4 ,we grumble at ,vasari1 we ridicule his inaccuracies1 we regret his limitations1 we scoff at his prejudices1 but when he withholds the light of his investigation from contemporary painters who did not enjoy the favour of popes and emperors1 we wander in a desert land without a guide1 and search with little or no success for the details that would serve to set the painter before us4 ,many men have taken up the work of investigation1 for ,luini grows steadily in favour and esteem1 but what ,vasari might have done in a week nobody has achieved in a decade4 ,a few unimportant church documents relating to commissions given to the painter are still extant4 ,he wrote a few words on his frescoes2 here and there a stray reference appears in the works of ,italian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries1 but our knowledge when it has been sifted and arranged is remarkably small and deplorably incomplete4 ,dr4 ,j4 ,c4 ,williamson1 a painstaking critic and a competent scholar1 has written an interesting volume dealing with the painter1 and in the making of it he has consulted nearly fifty authorities--,italian1 ,french1 ,english1 and ,german--only to find it is impossible to gather a short chapter of reliable and consecutive biography from them all4 ,our only hope lies in the discovery of some rich store of information in the public or private libraries of ,milan among the manuscripts that are the delight of the scholars4 ,countless documents lie unread1 many famous libraries are uncatalogued1 the archives of several noble ,italian houses that played an important part in fifteenth and sixteenth century ,italy have still to be given to the world4 ,it is not unreasonable to suppose that records of ,luini's life exist1 and in these days when scholarship is ever extending its boundaries there is hope that some scholar will lay the ever growing circle of the painter's admirers under lasting obligations4 ,until that time comes we must be content to know the man through the work that he has left behind him1 through the medium of fading frescoes1 stray altarpieces1 and a few panel pictures4 ,happily they have a definite and pleasant story to tell4 ,we must go to ,milan for ,luini just as we must go to ,rome for ,raphael and to ,madrid for ,velazquez and ,titian and to ,venice for ,jacopo ,robusti whom men still call the ,little ,dyer 7,tintoretto74 ,in ,london we have one painting on wood1 ,christ and the ,pharisees1 brought from the ,borghese ,palace in ,rome4 ,the head of ,christ is strangely feminine1 the four ,pharisees round him are finely painted1 and the picture has probably been attributed to ,leonardo da ,vinci at some period of its career4 ,there are three frescoes in ,south ,kensington and a few panel pictures in private collections4 ,the ,louvre is more fortunate than our ,national ,gallery1 it has several frescoes and two or three panels4 ,in ,switzerland1 in the ,church of ,st4 ,mary and the ,angels in ,lugano1 is a wonderful screen picture of the ,passion of ,christ with some hundreds of figures in it1 and the rest of ,luini's work seems to be in ,italy4 ,the greater part is to be found in ,milan1 some important frescoes having been brought to the ,brera from the house of the ,pelucca family in ,monza1 while there are some important works in ,florence in the ,pitti and ,uffizi ,galleries4 ,in the ,church of ,st4 ,peter at ,luino on the shores of ,lake ,maggiore1 the little town where ,benardino was born and from which he took his name1 there are some frescoes but they are in a very faded condition4 ,the people of the lake side town have much to say about the master who has made ,luino a place of pilgrimage but their stories are quite unreliable4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,iii4--,,salom ,,and ,,the ,,head ,,of ,,st4 ,,john ,,the ,,baptist 7,in the ,uffizi ,gallery1 ,florence7 ,in this striking and finely preserved picture ,bernardino ,luini has contrived to avoid all sense of horror4 ,the head of the dead ,john the ,baptist is full of beauty1 and even ,herodias is handled without any attempt to make her repulsive4 ,sufficient contrast is supplied by the executioner on the right4 ,it might be held1 seeing that the artist's work is scanty1 and often in the last stages of decay1 while his life story has faded quite from the recovered records of his contemporaries1 that ,luini is hardly fit subject for discussion here4 ,in a series of little books that seeks to introduce great artists to new friends through the medium of reproductions that show the work as it is1 and a brief concise description that aims at helping those who are interested to study the master for themselves1 there is a temptation to deal only with popular men4 ,these give no trouble to their biographer or his readers1 but after all it is not the number of pictures that an artist paints or the wealth of detail that his admirers have collected that establishes his claim to be placed among the immortals4 ,his claim rests upon the quality of the work done1 its relation to the times in which it was painted1 the mood or spirit it reveals1 the light it throws upon the mind that conceived and the hand that executed it4 ,we know enough and to spare of the more flamboyant personalities of the ,venetian and ,florentine schools4 ,long periods of study will not exhaust all there is to learn about men like ,titian1 ,michelangelo1 ,raphael of ,urbino1 and the rest1 but ,luini1 though he left no written record1 will not be denied4 ,we dare not pass him by1 seeing that we may introduce him to some admirers who will1 in days to come1 seek and find what remains beyond our reach at present4 ,his appeal is so irresistible1 the beauty of his work is so rare and so enduring that we must endeavour to the best of our ability1 however small it be1 to declare his praise1 to stimulate inquiry1 enlarge his circle1 and give him the place that belongs to him of right4 ,there are painters in plenty whose work is admired and praised1 whose claims we acknowledge instantly while admitting to ourselves that we should not care to live with their pictures hanging on round us4 ,the qualities of cleverness and brilliance pall after a little time1 the mere conquest of technical difficulties of the kind that have been self-inflicted rouses admiration for a while and then leaves us cold4 ,but the man who is the happy possessor of a fresco or a panel picture by ,luini is to be envied4 ,even he who lives in the neighbourhood of some gallery or church and only sees the rare master's works where1 blackening in the daily candle smoke1 they moulder on the damp wall's travertine1 will never tire of ,luini's company4 ,he will always find inspiration1 encouragement1 or consolation in the reflection of the serene and beautiful outlook upon life that gave the work so much of its enduring merit4 ,luini1 whatever manner of man he may have been1 was so clearly enamoured of beauty1 so clearly intolerant of what is ugly and unrefined1 that he shrank from all that was coarse and revolting either in the life around him or in certain aspects of the ,bible stories that gave him subjects for his brush4 ,beauty and simplicity were the objects of his unceasing search1 his most exquisite expression4 ,like all other great painters he had his marked periods of development1 his best work was done in the last years of his life1 but there is nothing mean or trivial in any picture that he painted and this is the more to his credit because we know from the documents existing to-day that he lived in the world and not in the cloister4 ,we admire the perennial serenity of ,beato ,angelico1 we rejoice with him in his exquisite religious visions4 ,the peaceful quality of his painting and the happy certainty of his faith move us to the deepest admiration1 but we may not forget that ,angelico lived from the time when he was little more than a boy to the years when he was an old man in the untroubled atmosphere of the monastery of ,san ,marco in ,florence1 that whether he was at home in that most favoured city or working in the ,vatican at ,rome1 he had no worldly troubles4 ,honour1 peace1 and a mind at peace with the world were with him always4 ,bernardino ,luini on the other hand travelled from one town in ,italy to another1 employed by religious houses from time to time1 but always as an artist who could be relied upon to do good work cheaply4 ,he could not have been rich1 he could hardly have been famous1 it is even reasonable to suppose that his circumstances were straitened1 and on this account the unbroken serenity of his work and his faithful devotion to beauty are the more worthy of our praise4 ,what was beautiful in his life and work came from within1 not from without1 and perhaps because he was a stranger to the cloistered seclusion that made ,fra ,angelico's life so pleasantly uneventful his work shows certain elements of strength that are lacking from the frescoes that adorn the walls of ,san ,marco to this day4 ,to his contemporaries he was no more than a little planet wandering at will round those fixed stars of the first magnitude that lighted all the world of art4 ,now some of those great stars have lost their light and the little planet shines as clear as ,hesperus4 ,,ii ,as we have said already nothing is known of ,luini's early life1 although the fact that he was born at ,luino on the ,lago ,maggiore seems to be beyond dispute4 ,the people of that little lake side town have no doubt at all about the matter1 and they say that the family was one of some distinction1 that ,giacomo of ,luino who founded a monastery in his native place was the painter's uncle4 ,perhaps the wish was father to the thought1 and because every man who sets out to study the life and work of an artist is as anxious to know as was ,miss ,rosa ,dartle herself1 there are always facts of a sort at his service4 ,he who seeks the truth can always be supplied with something as much like it as paste is to diamonds1 and can supplement the written word with the aid of tradition4 ,the early life of the artist is a blank1 and the authorities are by no means in agreement about the year of his birth4 #adgj would seem to be a reasonable date1 with a little latitude on either side4 ,many men writing long years after the painter's death1 have held that he was a pupil of ,leonardo da ,vinci1 indeed several pictures that were attributed to da ,vinci by the authorities of different ,european galleries are now recognised as ,luini's work1 but the mistake is not at all difficult to explain4 ,if we turn to ,la ,joconda1 a portrait by da ,vinci that hangs in the ,louvre to-day1 and is apparently beyond dispute in the eyes of the present generation of critics1 and then go through the ,brera in ,milan with a photograph of ,la ,joconda's portrait in our hand1 it will be impossible to overlook the striking resemblance between ,luini's types and da ,vinci's smiling model4 ,leonardo had an academy in ,milan1 and it is reasonable to suppose that ,luini worked in it1 although at the time when he is supposed to have come for the first time to the capital of ,lombardy1 ,leonardo da ,vinci had left1 apparently because ,louis ,,xii4 of ,france1 cousin and successor of that ,charles ,,viii4 who had troubled the peace of ,italy for so long1 was thundering at the city gates1 and at such a time great artists were apt to remember that they had good patrons elsewhere4 ,the school may1 however1 have remained open because no great rulers made war on artists1 and ,luini would have learned something of the spirit that animated ,leonardo's pictures4 ,for other masters and influence he seems to have gone to ,bramantino and ,foppa4 ,bramantino was a painter of ,milan and ,ambrosio ,foppa known as ,caradosso was a native of ,pavia and should not be reckoned among ,milanese artists as he has so often been4 ,he was renowned for the beauty of his medals and his goldsmith's work2 and he was one of the men employed by the great family of ,bentivoglio4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,iv4--,,the ,,mystic ,,marriage ,,of ,,st4 ,,catherine 7,in the ,brera1 ,milan7 ,this is a singularly attractive picture in which the child ,christ may be seen placing the ring upon the finger of ,st4 ,catherine4 ,the little open background1 although free from the slightest suggestion of ,palestine1 is very charming1 and the head of the ,virgin and ,st4 ,catherine help to prove that ,luini used few models4 ,it may be mentioned in this place that many ,italian artists1 particularly those of the ,florentine schools1 suffered very greatly from their unceasing devotion to the art of the miniaturist4 ,they sought to achieve his detail1 his fine but cramped handling1 and this endeavour was fatal to them when they came to paint large pictures that demanded skilled composition1 and the subordination of detail to a large general effect4 ,the influence of the miniature painter and the maker of medals kept many a fifteenth-century painter in the second grade and ,luini never quite survived his early devotion to their methods1 often making the fatal mistake of covering a large canvas with many figures of varying size but equal value4 ,it may be remarked that ,tintoretto was the first great painter of the ,renaissance who learned to subordinate parts to the whole1 and he had to face a great deal of unpopularity because he saw with his own eyes instead of using those of his predecessors4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,v4--,,the ,,madonna ,,of ,,the ,,rose 7,in the ,brera1 ,milan7 ,modern criticism proclaims this picture of the ,virgin in a ,bower of ,roses to be the finest of the master's paintings4 ,not only is it delightfully composed and thought out but the background is painted with rare skill1 and the colour is rich and pleasing to this day4 ,it may be suggested1 with all possible respect to those who hold different opinions1 that ,luini1 though he responded to certain influences1 had no master in the generally accepted sense of the term4 ,one cannot trace the definite relation between him and any older painter that we find between ,titian and ,gian ,bellini1 for example4 ,he took a certain type from ,leonardo1 his handling from time to time recalls the other masters--we have already referred to the most important of these--but had he studied in the school of one man1 had he served an apprenticeship after the fashion of his contemporaries1 his pictures would surely have been free from those faults of composition and perspective that detract so much from the value of the big works4 ,he seems to have been self-taught rather than to have been a schoolman4 ,while his single figures are wholly admirable whether on fresco or on panel1 his grouping is nearly always ineffective1 one might say childish1 and his sense of perspective is by no means equal to that of his greatest contemporaries4 ,as a draughtsman and a colourist ,luini had little to learn from anybody1 and the poetry of his conceptions is best understood when it is remembered that he was a poet as well as a painter4 ,he is said to have written poems and essays1 though we are not in a position to say where they are to be found1 and it is clear that he had a singularly detached spirit and that the hand of a skilled painter was associated with the mind of a little child4 ,in some aspects he is as simple as those primitive painters of ,umbria whose backgrounds are all of gold4 ,like so many other painters of the ,renaissance ,luini's saints and angels are peasant folk1 the people he saw around him4 ,he may have idealised them1 but they remain as they were made4 ,a few records of the prices paid for ,luini's work exist among the documents belonging to churches and religious houses1 and while they justify a belief that at the time he came to ,milan ,luini had achieved some measure of distinction in his calling1 they seem to prove that he was hardly regarded as a great painter4 ,the prices paid to him are ridiculously small1 no more than a living wage1 but he had the reputation of being a reliable and painstaking artist and he would seem to have been content with a small reward for work that appealed to him4 ,his early commissions executed in and around ,milan when he first came from ,luini were numerous and consisted very largely of frescoes which are the work of a young man who has not yet freed his own individuality from the influence of his elders4 ,one of the most charming works associated with this period is the ,burial of ,st4 ,catherine1 which is reproduced in these pages4 ,the composition is simple enough1 the handling does not touch the summit of the painter's later achievements1 but the sentiment of the picture is quite delightful4 ,st4 ,catherine is conceived in a spirit of deepest reverence and devotion1 but the angels are just ,lombardy peasant girls born to labour in the fields and now decorated with wings in honour of a great occasion4 ,and yet the man who could paint this fresco and could show so unmistakably his own simple faith in the story it sets out1 was a poet as well as a painter even though he had never written a line1 while the treatment of his other contemporary frescoes and the fine feeling for appropriate colour suggest a great future for the artist who had not yet reached middle age4 ,we see that ,luini devoted his brush to mythological and sacred subjects1 touching sacred history with a reverent hand1 shutting his eyes to all that was painful1 expressing all that was pitiful or calculated to strengthen the hold of religion upon the mass in fashion destined to appeal though in changing fashion for at least four centuries4 ,where the works have failed to triumph as expressions of a living faith they have charmed agnostics as an expression of enduring beauty4 ,from ,milan ,luini seems to have gone to ,monza1 a city a few miles away from the capital of ,lombardy where the rulers of united ,italy come after their coronation to receive the iron crown that has been worn by the kings of ,lombardy for nearly a thousand years4 ,this is the city in which the late ,king ,umberto1 that brave and good man1 was foully murdered by an anarchist4 ,to-day one reaches ,monza by the help of a steam-tram that blunders heavily enough over the wide flat ,lombardy plain4 ,the ,milanese go to ,monza for the sake of an outing1 but most of the tourists who throng the city stay away1 and it is possible to spend a few pleasant hours in the cathedral and churches with never a flutter of red-covered guide book to distract one's attention from the matters to which the hasty tourist is blind4 ,here ,luini painted frescoes1 and it is known that he stayed for a long time at the house of one of the strong men of ,monza and painted a large number of frescoes there4 ,to-day the fortress1 if it was one1 has become a farmhouse1 and the frescoes1 more than a dozen in all1 have been taken away to the ,royal ,palace in ,milan4 ,dr4 ,williamson in his interesting volume to which the student of ,luini must be deeply indebted1 says that there is one left at the ,casa ,pelucca4 ,the writer in the course of two days spent in ,monza was unfortunate enough to overlook it4 ,it has been stated that the facts relating to ,luini's life are few and far between4 ,fiction on the other hand is plentiful1 and there is a story that ,luini1 shortly after his arrival in ,milan1 was held responsible by the populace for the death of a priest who fell from a hastily erected scaffolding in the church of ,san ,giorgio where the artist was working4 ,the rest of the legend follows familiar lines that would serve the life story of any leading artist of the time1 seeing that they all painted altar-pieces and used scaffolding4 ,he is said to have fled to ,monza1 to have been received by the chief of the ,pelucca family1 to have paid for his protection with the frescoes that have now been brought from ,monza to the ,brera1 to have fallen violently in love with the beautiful daughter of the house1 to have engaged in heroic contests against great odds on her behalf1 and so on1 ad absurdum4 ,if we look at the portraits the painter is said to have made of himself and to have placed in pictures at ,saronna and elsewhere we shall see that ,luini was hardly the type of man to have engaged in the idle pursuits of chivalry in the intervals of the work to which his life was given4 ,we have the head of a man of thought not that of a man of action1 and all the character of the face gives the lie to the suggestions of the storytellers4 ,it is clear1 however1 that the painter made a long stay in ,monza and when he came back to ,milan he worked for the churches of ,st4 ,maurizio1 ,santa ,maria della ,pace1 ,santa ,maria di ,brera1 and ,st4 ,ambrosia4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,vi4--,,detail ,,of ,,fresco 7,in the ,brera1 ,milan7 ,this prettily posed figure is at the base of a fresco of the ,virgin with ,saints in the ,brera4 ,part of the artist's signature 7,bernardinus ,louinus7 may be seen below4 ,it will be remembered that ,carpaccio painted a very similar subject4 ,the fresco is not too well preserved4 ,in ,milan he found a great patron1 no less a man than ,giovanni ,bentivoglio who had been driven from his rule over ,bologna by the ,terrible ,pontiff ,julius ,,ii41 that life-long opponent and bitter enemy of the ,borgia ,pope ,alexander ,,vi4 ,alessandro ,bentivoglio1 the son of the ruined ,giovanni1 married ,ippolita ,sforza1 daughter of one of the house that had done so much to rule ,rome until ,pope ,alexander ,,vi4 broke its power4 ,alessandro ,bentivoglio commissioned ,luini to paint altar-pieces in ,st4 ,maurizio where his father was buried1 and the painter included in his work a portrait of ,ippolita ,sforza with three female saints4 ,he did much other work in this church2 some of it has faded almost beyond recognition4 ,at the same time there is no need to think that we have recovered the last work of ,luini or indeed of the great masters even in the churches of ,italy4 ,only a few months ago the writer was in a small ,italian church that had suffered a few years ago from disastrous floods4 ,the water unable to find no outlet had risen for a time almost to the top of the supporting columns4 ,the smooth wall above was plastered1 and when the waters had subsided it was found that the plaster had become so damaged that it was necessary to remove it4 ,happily the work was done carefully1 for under the whitewash some excellent frescoes were discovered4 ,they would seem to have profited by their covering for as much as has been uncovered is rich and well preserved4 ,it may be that in days when the ,state of ,italy was seriously disturbed1 and ,napoleon1 greatest of highwaymen and conquerors1 after being crowned in ,milan with the famous ,monza crown1 was laying his hand on all that seemed worth carrying away1 some one in authority thought of this simple method of concealment1 and obtained expert advice that enabled the frescoes to be covered without serious damage4 ,under similar conditions we may yet discover some of the earlier work of ,luini1 because it is clear that the years in which his reputation was in the making must have been full of achievement of which the greater part has now been lost4 ,he could hardly have been less than thirty years of age when he came to ,milan with a reputation sufficient to gain commissions for work in churches2 that reputation must have taken years to acquire1 and must have been associated with very definite accomplishment4 ,the lack of all record was essentially the misfortune that beset men who were not very high in the esteem of their contemporaries4 ,a painter like ,luini would have executed a great many pictures for people who could not pay very well1 and had no great gallery or well-built church to harbour the work1 and in the course of time the work would tend inevitably to disappear before the devouring candle-smoke1 or to be carried away by unscrupulous purchasers who chanced to be better equipped with taste than conscience4 ,on the other hand1 painters who led the various movements of their time would be honoured by successive generations and their work would be stored in the best and safest places4 ,to be sure1 fire was never a respecter of palaces or persons1 and the flames have consumed more work than a collection of the finest ,renaissance pictures in existence could show1 but even then the odds seem to be in favour of the bigger men because special efforts would be made to save their paintings while those of lesser men would be left with few regrets to take their chance4 ,when ,luini was engaged to work in the ,church of ,st4 ,maurizio there was a fair chance that his altar-pieces and frescoes would be well looked after1 but when he worked for a small provincial family like the ,pelucca the house sank with the family fortunes till at last it became a farm1 and in the early years of the nineteenth century the frescoes were taken from the walls with as much care as was deemed advisable4 ,doubtless ,luini worked for many men whose worldly position was not as considerable as that of the ,pelucca family1 and that work may have disappeared altogether4 ,the painter1 as we have seen1 did not enjoy the patronage of many great men before ,alessandro ,bentivoglio1 and large institutions were not numbered among his early clients4 ,but he was not altogether without valuable patronage in the latter days1 and in the early 'twenties of the sixteenth century the influential ,brotherhood of the ,holy ,crown1 one of the leading charitable institutions of ,milan1 would seem to have given him some official connection with their institution2 a recognised position without fixed salary4 ,for them he painted the magnificent frescoes now in the ,ambrosian ,library4 ,the great work there was divided by the artist into three parts separated by pillars4 ,in the centre ,luini has depicted the crowning with thorns1 ,christ being seated upon a throne while thorns are being put upon ,his head2 ,his arms are crossed2 ,his expression one of supreme resignation4 ,above ,him little angels look down or point to a cartouche on which is written ,caput ,regis ,glori ,spinis ,coranatur4 ,in the left hand division of the fresco and on the right1 the fore-ground is filled with kneeling figures whose heads are supposed to be portraits of the most prominent members of the ,society4 ,clearly they are all men who have achieved some measure of honour and distinction4 ,above the kneeling figures on the left hand side ,st4 ,john is pointing out the tragedy of the central picture to the ,virgin ,mary1 while on the right hand side a man in armour and another who is seen faintly behind him call the attention of a third to what is happening4 ,a crown of thorns hangs above the right and the left hand compartment and there is a landscape for background4 ,it is recorded that this work took about six months1 and was finished in ,march #aebb at a cost to the ,society of #aae soldi4 ,so ,luini's work looks down to-day upon a part of the great ,ambrosian ,library1 and it may well be that the library itself will yield to patient investigation some record1 however simple1 of the painter's life1 sufficient perhaps to enable us to readjust our mental focus and see his lovable figure more clearly4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,vii4--,,head ,,of ,,virgin 7,in the ,ambrosiana1 ,milan7 ,here we have another well painted and finely preserved head painted from one of ,luini's favourite models4 ,the artist must have known most of the secrets of colour preparation1 for his work has survived much that was painted centuries later4 ,unfortunately his frescoes were exposed to the elements and have suffered accordingly4 ,it may be urged that for those of us who are content to see with the spiritual eye ,luini is expressed more eloquently by his work1 and particularly by this great picture in the ,ambrosian ,library1 than he could hope to be by the combined efforts of half-a-dozen critics1 each with his own special point of view and his properly profound contempt for the views of others4 ,the painter's low tones and subtle harmonies1 his pure but limited vision1 speak to us of a gentle1 refined1 and delicate nature1 of an achievement that stopped short of cleverness and consequently limited him to the quieter byways of artistic life1 while those whose inspiration was less1 and whose gifts were more1 moved with much pomp and circumstance before admiring contemporaries4 ,the refined mind1 the sensitive soul1 shrank from depicting the tragedy of the ,crown of ,thorns in the realistic fashion that would have proved acceptable to so many other artists4 ,luini forgets the blood and the spikes1 he almost forgets the physical pain1 and gives us the ,man of ,sorrows who has forgiven ,his tormentors because they know not what they do4 ,continental galleries show us many treatments of the same familiar theme1 they have none to show that can vie with this in a combination of strength and delicacy that sets out an immortal story while avoiding the brutal realism to which so many other artists have succumbed4 ,we may suppose that the objects of the ,society roused ,luini's sympathy to an extent that made it easy for him to accept the somewhat paltry remuneration with which the ,brotherhood of the ,holy ,crown rewarded him1 and so the picture makes its own appeal on the painter's behalf1 and tells a story of his claims upon our regard4 ,a man may lie1 in fact it may be suggested on the strength of the ,psalmist's statement that most men do1 but an artist's life work tells his story in spite of himself1 and if he labour with pen or brush his truest biography will be seen in what he leaves behind him4 ,it is not possible to play a part throughout all the vicissitudes of a long career1 and no man could have given us the pictures that ,luini has left unless he chanced to be a choice and rare spirit4 ,we may remember here and now that the time was richer in violent contrasts than any of its successors1 the most deplorable excesses on the one hand1 the most rigid virtues on the other1 seem to have been the special product of the ,renaissance4 ,while there were men who practised every vice under the sun there were others who sought to arrest ,divine ,retribution by the pursuit of all the virtues1 and while the progress of the years has to a certain extent made men neutral tinted in character1 the season of the ,renaissance was one of violent contrasts4 ,on behalf of the section that went in pursuit of righteousness let it be remembered that heaven and the saints were not matters for speculation1 they were certainties4 ,every man knew that ,god was in heaven1 and that if the workers of iniquity flourished1 it was that they might be destroyed for ever4 ,every man knew that the saints still exerted their supernatural powers and would come down to earth if need be to protect a devotee4 ,satan1 on the other hand1 went armed about the earth seeking whom he might devour1 and hell was as firmly fixed as heaven4 ,in order to understand ,luini1 his life and times1 these facts must be borne in mind4 ,the greater the unrest in the cities the more the public attention would be turned to statesmen and warriors1 and when the personalities of artists began to be considered1 those who lived and thrived in the entourage of popes and rulers monopolised the attention4 ,hundreds of men were at work earning a fair living and some local repute1 it was left to foreign favour to set a seal upon success4 ,had ,luini chanced to be invited to ,venice or to ,rome he would have been honoured throughout ,lombardy2 but a painter like a prophet is often without honour in his own country4 ,luini's gifts were of a more quiet and domestic order than those of his great contemporaries ,leonardo da ,vinci and ,michelangelo1 for example1 were more than painters1 and perhaps it was only in ,venice that painting stood by itself and managed to thrive alone4 ,luini would have come into his kingdom while he lived had ,venice been his birthplace4 ,the genius of the ,florentine school sought to express itself in half-a-dozen different ways1 no triumph in one department of work could satisfy men whose longing for self-expression was insatiable4 ,in those days it was possible for a man to make himself master of all knowledge1 literally he could discourse de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis4 ,and this diffusion of interests was fatal to many a genius that might have moved to amazing triumph along one road4 ,it is clear that ,bernardino ,luini never travelled very far from his native country either physically or mentally4 ,in the eyes of his contemporaries he was not a man of sufficient importance to receive commissions from the great art centres of ,italy4 ,this1 of course1 may be because he did not have the good fortune to attract the attention of the connoisseurs of his day1 for we find that outside ,milan1 and the little town of ,luino where he was born and whence he took his name1 his work was done in comparatively small towns like ,como1 ,legnano1 ,lugano1 ,ponte1 and ,saronno4 ,milan and ,monza may be disregarded because we have already dealt with the work there4 ,saronno1 which lies some fourteen miles north-west of ,milan1 is little more than a village to-day1 and its chief claim upon the attention of the traveller is its excellent gingerbread for which it is famous throughout ,lombardy4 ,it has a celebrated church known as the ,sanctuary of the ,blessed ,virgin and here one finds some very fine examples of our painter's frescoes4 ,some of the frescoes in the church are painted by ,cesare del ,magno others by ,lanini1 and the rest are from the hand of ,bernardino ,luini4 ,round these frescoes1 which are of abiding beauty1 and include fine studies of the great plague saint1 ,st4 ,roque1 and that very popular martyr ,st4 ,sebastian1 many legends congregate4 ,it is said that ,luini having killed a man in a brawl fled from ,milan to the ,church of the ,blessed ,virgin in ,monza to claim sanctuary at the hand of the monks4 ,they gave him the refuge he demanded1 and1 says the legend1 he paid for it with frescoes4 ,this is little more than a variant of the story that he went to ,monza under similar circumstances and obtained the protection of the ,pelucca family on the same terms4 ,in the absence of anything in the nature of reliable record this story has been able to pass1 but against it one likes to put the tradition that one of the heads in the frescoes is that of ,luini himself4 ,we find that head so simple1 so refined1 and so old--the beard is long and the hair is scanty--and so serene in its expression that it is exceedingly difficult to believe that brawling could have entered into the artist's life4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,viii4--,,burial ,,of ,,st4 ,,catherine 7,in the ,brera1 ,milan7 ,this is one of the frescoes painted by ,luini for the ,casa ,pelucca and transferred to ,milan in the beginning of the nineteenth century4 ,it will be seen that although the three angels bearing the ,saint to her grave are obviously peasant girls from the plains of ,lombardy winged for the occasion1 the artist has handled his subject with faith and reverence4 ,the fresco is better preserved than others from the same house4 ,the subjects of the pictures in ,saronno's ,sanctuary are all biblical4 ,we have an ,adoration of the ,magi1 showing the same muddled composition that detracts from the other merits of the artist's work2 a beautiful ,presentation in the ,temple in which the composition is a great deal better2 and a perfectly delightful ,nativity4 ,there is a ,christ is ,disputing with the ,doctors1 and this is the picture in which we find the head that is said to be a portrait of the painter himself4 ,two female saints figure in another picture1 and ,luini's favourites ,st4 ,roque and ,st4 ,sebastian are not forgotten4 ,certainly if the monks obtained all that work at the price of the painter's safety they were very fortunate in his choice of sanctuary4 ,como is1 of course1 a more important town with large industries and important factories1 and one of the finest cathedrals in northern ,italy4 ,for the interior ,luini painted another ,adoration of the ,magi and another of his favourite ,nativities4 ,it is not easy to speak about the conditions under which this work was done1 and the inhabitants have so many more profitable matters to attend to that they do not seem to trouble themselves about the history of the painter who helped to make their beautiful cathedral still more beautiful4 ,legnano1 with its memories of ,frederick ,barbarossa1 is within twenty miles of ,milan1 and for the ,church of ,san ,magno ,luini painted one of his finest altar-pieces4 ,it is in seven divisions and has earned as much critical admiration as any work from the master's brush4 ,lugano is of course in ,switzerland1 well across the ,italian border4 ,it is a popular place enough to-day1 and so far as we can tell1 it was the city in which ,luini painted his last pictures4 ,he must have left ,milan about #aebh or #aebi1 and he would seem to have gone there to execute commissions1 for in the ,church of ,santa ,maria degli ,angioli we find some of his latest and finest work4 ,the ,crucifixion and the ,passion1 on the wall of the screen1 contains several hundred figures arranged in lines in most archaic fashion4 ,at first sight the work appears as a mere mass of figures without any central point in the composition1 and with very little relief for the eye of the spectator who may come to the church surfeited with the bewildering riches of many ,italian galleries4 ,but for those who will take the trouble to study the details of this fine work there is very much to admire4 ,in the scene of the picture ,christ is seen on the cross surrounded by angels4 ,on his right hand the penitent thief on the cross is guarded by an angel1 while on the left the impenitent one is watched by a devil with a curly tail and spiked wings4 ,below in perfectly bewildering fashion are many figures that may be recognised with little effort--,mary ,magdalen1 the ,madonna1 ,joseph of ,arimatha1 ,roman soldiers1 some of the general public--a confused crowd4 ,the whole picture is supported by figures of ,san ,sebastian and ,st4 ,roque seen on either side of the arch4 ,stories from the life of ,christ are depicted in the upper parts of the picture1 all are painted with the skill of a great artist and the fervour of a devotee1 but the arrangement is hopelessly confused4 ,luini also painted a ,last ,supper for this church and a ,madonna with the ,infant ,christ and ,st4 ,john4 ,this is signed ,bernardino ,luini1 anno #aecj4 ,from #aecj until #aecc the career of the artist cannot be traced1 but in #aecc he was in ,lugano again1 and after that year he passes altogether from our sight4 ,stray writers mention his name1 some venture to carry the date of his life into the 'forties1 but we have no proof save their word1 no work to record the later years1 and all our conjecture is vain4 ,it must suffice for us that ,luini's life as far as his art was concerned ends for us with the year #aecc4 ,if he lived and worked after that date the facts relating to the following years and the work done in the latter days are left for future students to discover4 ,it is well to remember that the ,saronno portrait makes the painter look much older than he is supposed to have been4 ,to his contemporaries it is clear that ,luini was a man of small importance4 ,his best work is seen outside the radius of the great ,art centres of ,italy1 and it was only when he attracted the attention of great critics and sound judges like ,morelli1 ,john ,ruskin1 and ,john ,addington ,symonds that the lovers of beautiful pictures began to go out of their way to find his best work in the little towns whose churchmen were his patrons4 ,so many of the lesser men had all his faults--that is to say1 lack of perspective and inability to compose a big picture--that he was classed with them by those critics whose special gift lies in the discovery of faults4 ,the qualities that make the most enduring appeal to us to-day were those that were least likely to make a strong impression upon the strenuous age of physical force in which he lived4 ,when great conquerors and men who had accomplished all that force could achieve felt themselves at liberty to turn to prolonged consideration of the other sides of life they employed other masters4 ,then as now there were fashions in painters4 ,the men for whom ,luini strove were of comparatively small importance4 ,a conqueror could have gathered up in the hollow of his hand all the cities1 ,milan excepted1 in which ,luini worked throughout his well-spent life1 and in the stress and strife of the later years when great pictures did change hands from time to time by conquest1 ,luini's panel pictures in the little cities of his labours passed quite unnoticed1 while even if the frescoes were admired it was not easy to move them4 ,when at last his undoubted merits began to attract attention of connoisseurs1 these connoisseurs were wondering why ,leonardo da ,vinci had left such a small number of pictures4 ,they found work that bore a great resemblance to ,leonardo and they promptly claimed that they had discovered the lost masterpieces4 ,consequently ,leonardo received the credit that was due to the man who may have worked in his ,milanese school and was undoubtedly under his influence for a time4 ,and many of the beautiful panel pictures that show ,luini at his best were attributed to ,leonardo until nineteenth-century criticism proved competent enough to render praise where it was due1 and to say definitely and with firm conviction that the unknown painter from ,luino1 who lived sometime between #adgj and #aedj1 was the true author4 ,if1 in dealing with the life of ,bernardino ,luini1 we are forced to content ourselves with meagre scraps of biography and little details that would have no importance at all in dealing with a life that was traceable from early days to its conclusion1 it is well to remember that the most important part of the great artist is his work4 ,beethoven's nine symphonies1 ,milton's ,paradise ,lost1 the landscapes of ,corot1 the portraits of ,velazquez1 and the carving of ,grinling ,gibbons are not more precious to us because we know something of the life of the men who did the work4 ,nor are the ,iliad and the fragments that remain of the works of the great ,greek sculptors less to us because a shadowy tradition is all that surrounds the lives of the men who gave immortal work to the world4 ,we must remember that it is as difficult to deal with art in terms of literature as it is to express the subtle charm of music in words4 ,had ,luini's years boasted or regretted a series of gossiping newspapers we should have gathered a rich harvest of fact1 but the facts would have left the painter where he is4 ,there is enough of ,luini left in ,milan and the smaller places we have named to tell us what the man was and the spirit in which he worked1 and while we will welcome the new-comer who can add to our scanty store of authenticated facts we can hardly expect that they will deepen our admiration of work that for all its shortcomings must be remembered when we turn to ponder the greatest achievements of ,italian ,art4 ,it forms a magic speculum1 much gone to rust1 indeed1 yet in fragments still clear2 wherein the marvellous image of his existence does still shadow itself1 though fitfully1 and as with an intermittent light4 ,the plates are printed by ,,bemrose ,,dalziel1 ,,ltd41 ,watford ,the text at the ,,ballantyne ,,press1 ,edinburgh