PAINTING THE DEAD.

Giovanni Baptista Gaulli, called Baciccio, one of the most eminent Genoese painters, was no less celebrated for portraits than for history.  Pascoli says he painted no less than seven different Pontiffs, besides many illustrious personages.  Possessing great colloquial powers, he engaged his sitters in the most animated conversation, and thus transferred their features to his canvas, so full of life and expression, that they looked as though they were about to speak to the beholder.  He also had a remarkable talent of painting the dead, so as to obtain an exact resemblance of deceased persons whom he had never seen.  For this purpose, he drew a face at random, afterwards altering it in every feature, by the advice and under the inspection of those who had known the original, till he had improved it to a striking likeness.

TADDEO ZUCCARO.

This eminent painter was born at San Angiolo, in the Duchy of Urbino, in 1529.  At a very early age he evinced a passion for art and a precocious genius.  After having received instruction from his father, a painter of little note, his extraordinary enthusiasm induced him, at fourteen years of age, to go to Rome, without a penny in his pocket, where he passed the day in designing, from the works of Raffaelle.  Such was his poverty, that he was compelled to sleep under the loggie of the Chigi palace; he contrived to get money enough barely to supply the wants of nature, by grinding colors for the shops.  Undaunted by difficulties that would have driven a less devoted lover of the art from the field, he pursued his studies with undiminished ardor, till his talents and industry attracted the notice of Daniello da Por, an artist then in repute, who generously relieved his wants and gave him instruction.  From that time he made rapid progress, and soon acquired a distinguished reputation, but he died at Rome in 1566, in the prime of life.

ZUCCARO’S RESENTMENT.

Federigo Zuccaro, the brother of Taddeo, was employed by Pope Gregory XIII. in the Pauline chapel.  While proceeding with his work, however, he fell out with some of the Pope’s officers; and conceiving himself treated with indignity, he painted an allegorical picture of Calumny, introducing the portraits of all those individuals who had offended him, decorated with asses’ ears.  This he caused to be exhibited publicly over the gate of St. Luke’s church, on the festival day of that Saint.  His enemies, upon this, made such complaints that he was forced to fly from Rome, and passing into France, he visited Flanders and England.  As soon as the pontiff was appeased, he returned to Rome, and completed his work in the Pauline chapel, fortunate in not losing his head as the price of such a daring exploit.

ROYAL CRITICISM.