Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
Recollect, again, that it was for the tomb of this same Pope Julius II
that Michael Angelo produced the two so-called Fettered Slaves, which
you have seen or will see in the Renaissance Sculpture Room of this
collection. Weave your knowledge together in this way, till it forms a
connected whole, which enables you far better to understand and
appreciate.
I call your special attention to this picture, among other things, for
its historical rather than its artistic value. But I want you also to
realise that the man who was painted in this rude and antiquated style
in his middle age was painted again in his declining years by Raphael at
the summit of his powers, and was a patron of the mighty Michael Angelo
at the zenith of his development. This will help to impress upon you
better than anything else the necessity for carefully =noting
chronology=, and will also supply a needed caution that you must not
regard any work as necessarily early on no better ground than because it
is comparatively archaic in style and treatment.
* * * * *
Next inspect the two little companion pictures of =St. George and St.
Michael= by =Raphael=, on the R wall of the First Compartment in the
Long Gallery. These two small works are rare examples of Raphael’s very
earliest pre-Peruginesque manner. Morelli has shewn that the great
painter was first of all a pupil of Timoteo Viti at Urbino, his native
town. If you have not visited Bologna and Milan, however, this will tell
you little; for nowhere else can you see Timoteo to any great advantage;
and I may observe here that the best time to visit the Louvre is _after_
you have been in Italy, where you ought to have formed a clear
conception of the various masters and their relations to one another.
But you can see at least, on the face of them, that these two simple and
graceful little works are quite different in style and manner even from
the _Belle Jardinière_, and certainly very unlike the much later St.
Margaret which hangs close by them. They are still comparatively
mediæval in tone: they have a definiteness and clearness of outline
which contrasts strongly with the softer melting tones of Raphael’s
later work: they show as yet no tinge of the affected prettinesses which
he learned from Perugino—still less of his later Florentine and Roman
manners. They are painted on the back of a chess or draught board, and
were produced for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino about the year 1500.
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