Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In the Chapel of the Cavalcanti in S. Croce he painted a S. John the
Baptist and a S. Francis, which are held to be very good figures. But
what caused all the craftsmen to marvel was a very beautiful picture in
fresco that he made at the head of the new cloister of the said convent,
opposite to the door, of Christ being scourged at the Column, wherein he
painted a loggia with columns in perspective, and groined vaulting with
diminishing lines, and walls inlaid in a pattern of mandorle, with so
much art and so much diligence, that he showed that he had no less
knowledge of the difficulties of perspective than he had of design in
painting. In the same scene there are beautiful and most animated
attitudes in those who are scourging Christ, showing hatred and rage in
their faces as clearly as Jesus Christ is showing patience and humility.
In the body of Christ, which is bound tightly with ropes to the Column,
it appears that Andrea tried to demonstrate the suffering of the flesh,
while the Divinity concealed in that body maintains a certain noble
splendour, which seems to be moving Pilate, who is seated among his
councillors, to seek to find some means of liberating Him. In short,
this picture is such that, if the little care that has been taken of it
had not allowed it to be scratched and spoilt by children and
simpletons, who have scratched all the heads and the arms and almost the
entire persons of the Jews, as though they would thus take vengeance on
them for the wrongs of Our Lord, it would certainly be the most
beautiful of all the works of Andrea. And if Nature had given grace of
colouring to this craftsman, even as she gave him invention and design,
he would have been held truly marvellous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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