A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools: Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin
History
A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools: Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin
National Gallery (Great Britain); Painting -- England -- London -- Catalogs
If really by Perugino,[104] this must be one of his early works. It is
painted in _tempera_. The Flemish process of oil-painting found its
way to Venice, where Perugino is known to have been in 1494, and where
he probably learnt it. The superiority of the new method may be seen
in a moment by comparing the cracked surface and faded colours of this
picture with 288, which was painted when Perugino had obtained complete
mastery over the new medium, and which is still as bright and fresh as
when it was painted. The style of this picture is, however, thoroughly
Peruginesque. It is interesting to compare the Umbrian type of the
Madonna--innocent and girl-like, with an air of far-off reverie--with
the types of other schools. The Umbrian Madonna is less mature, more
etherealised than the Venetian. She is a girl, rather than a mother.
Therein she resembles the Florentine type; but an air of dreamy reverie
in the Umbrian takes the place of the intellectual mysticism of
the Florentine. In Perugino "the Umbrian type finds its fullest and
highest representative. Dainty small features, all too babyish for
the figures that bear them; a mouth like a cupid's bow; a tiny and
delicate chin; eyes set well apart, with curiously heavy and drooping
lids; faint pencilled eyebrows; a broad smooth forehead,--these are the
main elements in Perugino's Madonnas" (Grant Allen in the _Pall Mall
Magazine_, 1895, p. 620).
184. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY.
_Nicolas Lucidel_ (German: 1527-1590).
Lucidel (a name which is supposed to be a corruption of
Neufchatel) studied painting at Antwerp, and afterwards settled
at Nuremberg. This picture, dated 1561, was formally ascribed
to Sir Antonio More and supposed to represent Jeanne d'Archel;
but it reveals (says the latest edition of the Official
Catalogue) "in its style and its Upper German costume, the
handiwork of Lucidel."
"The picture is much obscured," says Sir Edward Poynter, "by a coarse
brown varnish. A beautiful example of this master, in the collection of
Lord Spencer, is remarkable for the purity of its colour, and doubtless
this portrait had originally the same qualities" (_The National
Gallery_, i. 294).
186. PORTRAITS OF JAN ARNOLFINI AND HIS WIFE.
_Jan van Eyck_ (Early Flemish: about 1390-1440).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account