Miscellaneous Studies; a series of essaysPater, Walter
Philosophy
Miscellaneous Studies; a series of essays
Pater, Walter
Essays
with certain tricks therein of nature itself, by which Correggio
touches Rembrandt on the one hand, Da Vinci on the other. Here, in
Moretto's work, you may think that manner more delightful, perhaps
because more refined, than in Correggio himself. Those pensive,
tarnished, silver side-lights, like mere reflexions of natural
sunshine, may be noticed indeed in many another painter of that day, in
Lanini, for instance, at the National Gallery. In his "Nativity" at
the Brera, Procaccini of Verona almost anticipates Correggio's Heilige
Nacht. It is, in truth, the first step in the decomposition of light,
a touch of decadence, of sunset, along the whole horizon of
North-Italian art. It is, however, as the painter of the white-stoled
Ursula and her companions that the great master of Brescia is most
likely to remain in the memory of the visitor; with this fact, above
all, clearly impressed on it, that Moretto had attained full
intelligence of all the pictorial powers of white. In the clearness,
the cleanliness, the hieratic distinction, of this earnest and
deeply-felt composition, there is something "pre-Raphaelite"; as also
in a certain liturgical formality in the grouping of the virgins--the
[104] looks, "all one way," of the closely-ranged faces; while in the
long folds of the drapery we may see something of the severe grace of
early Tuscan sculpture--something of severity in the long, thin,
emphatic shadows. For the light is high, as with the level lights of
early morning, the air of which ruffles the banners borne by Ursula in
her two hands, her virgin companions laying their hands also upon the
tall staves, as if taking share, with a good will, in her
self-dedication, with all the hazard of battle. They bring us,
appropriately, close to the grave of this manly yet so virginal
painter, born in the year 1500, dead at forty-seven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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