V. he returned to Naples, and died in 1705, aged seventythree.

Another highly-appreciated foreign painter of a later date was Anton Raphael Mengs, a native of Bohemia, born in 1728. Though he is claimed by both Germans and Romans, as court-painter to the King of Saxony and a long resident at Rome, yet he also entered the service of Charles III. of Spain, and has left in that country some of his finest pictures. He was commissioned by the king to fresco his new palace at Madrid, and afterward painted "The Descent from the Cross; "a "Nativity," or "Adoration of the Shepherds;" and a "Noli me tangere," or "Christ and Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection;" as well as other frescoes and altar-pieces.

Through the government of the Bourbons no native master appeared to redeem the decline of Spanish art, unless we except Francisco Goya, born in Aragon, in 1746. He was court-painter to Charles IV., but his style differed widely from that of his predecessors. The religious element in his nature was so utterly wanting that his sacred pictures would have transfixed Pacheco and his contemporaries with horror and dismay. In portraits he was more successful, but his peculiar forte was as a caricaturist of monks and ecclesiastical abuses. Stirling calls him "the Spanish Hogarth;" though much coarseness was mixed with his satire. He smeared his colors over the canvas in blots and splashes, and was quite as likely to paint with a stick, or with a palette-knife, as with a brush. But his local fame rested principally upon his etchings, of which he published a great number. The most celebrated were "a series of eighty illustrations of Spanish lifeand proverbial philosophy which he entitled Caprichos, or

Whims." During this eighteenth century. also appeared a pretty conceit of painting the Virgin Mary as the divine Shepherdess, "seated beneath a tree, and feeding lambs on roses." Such an example, by Tobar, may be seen in the Madrid Gallery.

In closing this sketch of the painters of Spain it may be observed that the War of Independence, though apparently destructive to many treasures of the past, greatly extended the fame of the nation. The masterpieces scattered through Europe roused the deserved appreciation of the genius which Spain had piously hid. We must admire the pictorial gems unblushingly stolen by Marshal Soult and other officers, though we condemn the mode of their acquisition; and in these days, when engravings and photographs have brought within our view so many of the best designs of great artists, we are, or should be, as familiar with Velasquez and Murillo as with Correggio and Raphael.

CHAPTER XVI.

PAINTING IN FRANCE.

THE beautiful illuminated manuscripts in the Royal Library of Paris, which we have noticed in the early chapter on "Byzantine and Miniature Painting," form the foundation of subsequent French art. A grace and delicacy of touch, characteristic of the nation, is already observable in such manuscripts as mark the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, especially in the "Psalters" and "Romaunts" of the period. Yet no famous names are attached to such illuminations until the time of Jehan Foucquet, of Tours, born about 1415, court-painter to Louis XI., who has left us many miniatures in the "Josephus" and other parchments preserved at Paris, as well as in a "Boccaccio," at Munich, and a "Book of Hours," at Frankfort. We have not any panelpictures from his hand, except possibly a "Madonna and Child," attributed to him in the Museum at Antwerp. This is really a portrait of Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII., in the garb of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by angels with red wings. It is a pale, unpleasant picture, in the Flemish style, but without Flemish merits.

Although very few ancient frescoes now exist in France, apart from the interesting works of Simone Martini, or

Memmi, and other Italians, at Avignon, yet national critics persistently assert that in the time of Charlemagne it was customary to cover whole walls of churches with mural decorations, for the instruction of the people; and that many monks and prelates were accomplished artists. However this may be, we know that glass-painting was practised at an early date, and carried to great perfection by the fourteenth century, as the old cathedrals abundantly testify.

The good King René of Anjou, 1408, patron of minstrels and lover of every form of idealism, also figures in tradition. as the executor of several altar-pieces, especially a "Moses and the Burning Bush," in the cathedral of Aix. The authenticity of these, as well as of his " Preaching of the Magdalene” to a listening crowd, among whom sit himself and wife, still shown in the Hôtel de Cluny, Paris, is not unquestioned; though he was without doubt something of a proficient in art, and derived much consolation from it. "He was painting a partridge when the loss of the kingdom of Naples was announced to him, and did not even take his hand from the picture."

But it is with Jean Cousin that the history of the French school really opens. The time of his birth has not been accurately fixed, neither are we acquainted with the details of his life, except that he began his career, early in the fifteenth century, as a painter on glass; completed the beautiful windows of the cathedral of Sens, was thrice married, and reached advanced age. His only well-known composition is the "Last Judgment," of the Louvre; a confused but powerful production, where the nude figures of the risen dead strangely mingle with a landscape background of temple,

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tower, bridges, and ruins. Cousin was also an able sculptor and engraver, and was versed in literature and mathematics.

François Clouet, of the same period, surnamed Janet, was the first eminent French portrait-painter. His pictures are quite hard and Flemish in truth and precision, yet have an air of French esprit and grace. The Clouet family is supposed to have originated in Flanders, and thence migrated to Tours. Several others of its members were painters. The Louvre attributes to François only two authentic likenesses—those of King Charles IX., and his wife, Elizabeth of Austria. Many other portraits, either painted by his son, grandson, or pupils, or perhaps copies from lost originals, have frequently been ascribed to him, and are of great value in French history.

The era of Francis I., the royal patron of Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, was particularly marked by the adornment of Fontainebleau, his favorite palace, with large and elaborate frescoes, executed chiefly by Italian artists whom he summoned to his court. These artists and their French followers constituted a separate band, usually spoken of as "the school of Fontainebleau." Most of the frescoes have perished, and none were of any great value as works of high art. They were begun under the direction of Rosso di Rossi, called Maître Roux. But, as he killed himself in 1541, a Bolognese, Francesco Primaticcio, was sent by the Duke of Mantua to complete the gallery. He was assisted by Niccolo dell' Abbate. Primaticcio had been the pupil of Giulio Romano, and, though brilliant in coloring, was mannered in design.

Simon Vouet, born in Paris, in 1590, brings us down to the