Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
1344, by Filippo Lippi, next to it, exhibits Filippo’s very rounded
faces, both in Madonna and angels. The type is more human. Here, again,
we have the Florentine lily borne by the adoring choir, whose position
should be compared as a faint lingering reminiscence of that in the
Giottesques and the great Cimabue. Observe, at the same time, the
division of the painting as a whole into three false compartments, a
suggestion from the earlier type of altar-piece. At the Madonna’s feet
are two adoring saints, difficult to identify—Florentine and local,
probably. Do not fail to gaze close at the characteristic baby cherubs,
perhaps Lucrezia’s. This picture should be compared in all its details
with earlier pictures of angel choirs. It is a lovely work. Its delicate
painting is strongly characteristic. The relief of the faces should be
specially noted.
The Botticelli next it, 1296, introduces us to the infant St. John of
Florence whom we meet again in the _Belle Jardinière_ of Raphael’s
Florentine period. Another young St. John close by is full of
suggestions of Donatello in the Sculpture Gallery.
493, above the last but one, is a very characteristic Madonna of the
Florentine school, closely resembling the type of Botticelli. This once
more is a simple Madonna and Child, without accessories.
In 1662, the sanctity has almost disappeared and we get scarcely more
than a purely human mother and baby.
On the opposite side, 4573, is a half-length by Perugino, the affected
pose of whose neck and the character of whose face you will now
recognise; the Madonna floats in an almond-shaped glory of cherubs,
which indicates her ascent to heaven. Several similar subjects exist in
sculpture at Cluny.
1540, Lo Spagna, is again a simple half-length Madonna, whose purely
Umbrian type recalls both Perugino and the earlier examples. Compare the
Peruginos, Raphaels, and Lo Spagnas here, and form from them some
conception of the Umbrian ideal.
Of the Bellini beside it I have already spoken sufficiently. Observe,
here, the absolute nudity of the Child, and the reduction of the angels
to sweet little cherub heads among clouds in the background. The
graceful arrangement of the attendant saints strikes a Bellini keynote:
it was followed in later developments of this subject by Venetian
painters. Such half-lengths are common among the School of Bellini.
The treatment by Cima, 1259, introducing landscape, and the peculiarly
high Venetian throne, is one of a sort also very frequent for
full-length Madonnas at Venice and in the Venetian territory. The
grouping of the saints, also, is here transitional. Compare it with the
exquisite Lorenzo di Credi opposite.
On the opposite wall, 1367, by Mainardi, shows us a Florentine face, the
St. John of Florence, and the typical sweet-faced Florentine angels,
holding lilies; in the background, a view of the city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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