DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49256#0149
VALENTIN.
11
especially worthy of attention is the fine tone of the colouring and the broad bold manner of
Valentin’s execution. The only thing that really can be blamed in the wholo picture is the
anachronism of the spectacles.
Valentin’s dissipated mode of life was the cause of his death. One day, during the great
summer-heats, he had gone with his companions to amuse himself unreservedly in a certain
place, where, according to his usual custom, ho smoked and drank to excess, and hcated himself
to an extraordinary degree. After night had set in, he was returning to his own résidence
through the deserted streets of Rome, when, in passing over the Place d’Espagne, near the
fountain Del Babbuino, he felt a desire to throw himself into the basin, in order to quench the
fire which was consuming him. This act of imprudence brought on, doubtless, a pleurisy,
for he died a few days afterwards, in the year 1632, and the flower of his âge, being only
thirty-one years old.*
Was not this exactly the kind of death we might hâve expected for this strange being, who
had always been carried away by the impetuosity of his character, and whose mode of life
resembled so much his mode of painting ; who was as unsparing of his powers as ho was
unmindful of ail the established rules of his art, and who was as inaccessible to the dictâtes of
prudence, as he had been forgetful of the remonstrances of Poussin. With such a disposition
Valentin could not hâve continued a rich man, supposing he had ever succeeded in becoming
one. It is not surprising, therefore, that he died so poor, as not to hâve sufficient for the
expenses of his fanerai. It was the Cavalier Cassiano del Pozzo who defrayed them. j*
Moïse Valentin holds the same place in the Frencli School that Caravaggio held at Rome,
Salvator at Naples, Ribera in Spain, and Gérard délia notte in Holland.
After the great movement of the Renaissance, which was only a return to the materialism of
antiquity, there were still some men who were not yet contented. Michael Angelo had treated
the Last Judgment like a large anatomical plate ; he had dissected the human body and observed
the play of the muscles in every possible position. Raphaël had invested matter with ail the
importance of which it was susceptible ; unlike the successors of Cimabue, he had not thought
it impérative on him to mortify the flesh. After having shared the apparent ferveur of
Perugino, he had gradually abandoned it, and finished by almost admiring form for its own
sake. But this grand re-action against gothic asceticism, this re-action to which Michael Angelo
and Raphaël gave, at any rate, the finishing stroke, even if they did not bogin it, did not appear
sufficient or complété. The innovators wanted to go still further. The two great men we hâve
just mentioned had borrowed from Nature her purest and noblest forms only, but the disciples
of Caravaggio acknowledged no distinction, no choice of subject. They devoted themselves to
the coarsest phenomena of matter, and believed that the value of their works consisted
exclusively in the beauty of the execution.
Speaking of Valentin’s death, Fabien Dillet says:—“Some critics think, but without giving
* The majority of writers make Valentin’s death occur in 1632. Monsieur Duchesne, Sen., fixes on August, 1632,
as the date of it. According tothe author of the Catalogue of the Vatican, he died in 1623. The historian, Baglione,
relates the circumstance of his death in the foliowing terms : Era nella stagione calda délia state, e Valentino andato
co’ suoi compagni a diporto in un luogo, e havendo preso gran tabacco (si corne era suo costume) e co’ quelli
soverchiamente bevendo vino, s’infiammo di modo che non poteva vivere del grand’ardore che egli s’estiva. Ritornando
a casa di notte retrovossi si a via alla fonte del Babbuino e raportato dal gran’ incendio che col moto ogni hora
cresceva, gettosi dentro a quell’ acqua fredda, e pensando d’acquistarvi ristoro, vi trovô la morte. Il freddo
maggiormente riconcentrô il calore, e gli accese una febra si maligna, che in pochi di fu estinto dal gelo délia
micidiale morte.—Vite de' Pittori, p. 223.
f Si non era la pieta e la cortesia del signor cavalière Cassiano del Pozzo, non v’era da dargli sepoltura.—Vite
de' Pittori.
75
11
especially worthy of attention is the fine tone of the colouring and the broad bold manner of
Valentin’s execution. The only thing that really can be blamed in the wholo picture is the
anachronism of the spectacles.
Valentin’s dissipated mode of life was the cause of his death. One day, during the great
summer-heats, he had gone with his companions to amuse himself unreservedly in a certain
place, where, according to his usual custom, ho smoked and drank to excess, and hcated himself
to an extraordinary degree. After night had set in, he was returning to his own résidence
through the deserted streets of Rome, when, in passing over the Place d’Espagne, near the
fountain Del Babbuino, he felt a desire to throw himself into the basin, in order to quench the
fire which was consuming him. This act of imprudence brought on, doubtless, a pleurisy,
for he died a few days afterwards, in the year 1632, and the flower of his âge, being only
thirty-one years old.*
Was not this exactly the kind of death we might hâve expected for this strange being, who
had always been carried away by the impetuosity of his character, and whose mode of life
resembled so much his mode of painting ; who was as unsparing of his powers as ho was
unmindful of ail the established rules of his art, and who was as inaccessible to the dictâtes of
prudence, as he had been forgetful of the remonstrances of Poussin. With such a disposition
Valentin could not hâve continued a rich man, supposing he had ever succeeded in becoming
one. It is not surprising, therefore, that he died so poor, as not to hâve sufficient for the
expenses of his fanerai. It was the Cavalier Cassiano del Pozzo who defrayed them. j*
Moïse Valentin holds the same place in the Frencli School that Caravaggio held at Rome,
Salvator at Naples, Ribera in Spain, and Gérard délia notte in Holland.
After the great movement of the Renaissance, which was only a return to the materialism of
antiquity, there were still some men who were not yet contented. Michael Angelo had treated
the Last Judgment like a large anatomical plate ; he had dissected the human body and observed
the play of the muscles in every possible position. Raphaël had invested matter with ail the
importance of which it was susceptible ; unlike the successors of Cimabue, he had not thought
it impérative on him to mortify the flesh. After having shared the apparent ferveur of
Perugino, he had gradually abandoned it, and finished by almost admiring form for its own
sake. But this grand re-action against gothic asceticism, this re-action to which Michael Angelo
and Raphaël gave, at any rate, the finishing stroke, even if they did not bogin it, did not appear
sufficient or complété. The innovators wanted to go still further. The two great men we hâve
just mentioned had borrowed from Nature her purest and noblest forms only, but the disciples
of Caravaggio acknowledged no distinction, no choice of subject. They devoted themselves to
the coarsest phenomena of matter, and believed that the value of their works consisted
exclusively in the beauty of the execution.
Speaking of Valentin’s death, Fabien Dillet says:—“Some critics think, but without giving
* The majority of writers make Valentin’s death occur in 1632. Monsieur Duchesne, Sen., fixes on August, 1632,
as the date of it. According tothe author of the Catalogue of the Vatican, he died in 1623. The historian, Baglione,
relates the circumstance of his death in the foliowing terms : Era nella stagione calda délia state, e Valentino andato
co’ suoi compagni a diporto in un luogo, e havendo preso gran tabacco (si corne era suo costume) e co’ quelli
soverchiamente bevendo vino, s’infiammo di modo che non poteva vivere del grand’ardore che egli s’estiva. Ritornando
a casa di notte retrovossi si a via alla fonte del Babbuino e raportato dal gran’ incendio che col moto ogni hora
cresceva, gettosi dentro a quell’ acqua fredda, e pensando d’acquistarvi ristoro, vi trovô la morte. Il freddo
maggiormente riconcentrô il calore, e gli accese una febra si maligna, che in pochi di fu estinto dal gelo délia
micidiale morte.—Vite de' Pittori, p. 223.
f Si non era la pieta e la cortesia del signor cavalière Cassiano del Pozzo, non v’era da dargli sepoltura.—Vite
de' Pittori.
75