Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
R and L of the door, early squat figures of Strength and Prudence,
Italian sculpture of the 13th century, still exhibiting many Gothic
characteristics, but with a nascent striving after higher truth which
began with the school of the Pisani at Pisa. Opposite them, Justice and
Temperance, completing the set of the four cardinal virtues. These may
be looked upon as the point of departure. They show the first germ of
Renaissance feeling. L of doorway, good Madonna from Ravenna; flanked by
two innocent-faced angels, in deacon’s dress, drawing aside a curtain
from a tomb—beautiful work of the Pisan school of the 14th century:
contrasted with the best French reliefs at Cluny (such as the legend of
St. Eustace), these works exhibit the early advance of art in Italy.
Between them (contrasting well with the early French style, as much more
idealised) terra-cotta painted Madonna and Child. Beneath, good Madonna
in wood, and painted gesso Madonnas, later. Near the window,
=**=beautiful bust of a child, by Donatello, exhibiting the exquisite
unconscious naïveté of the early Renaissance. Most of these works are so
fully described on their pedestals that I shall only call attention to a
few characteristics. The emaciated figure of the Magdalen, in a Glory of
Cherubs, below, is the conventional representation of that Saint, when a
penitent in Provence, being daily raised aloft to the beatific vision:
many examples occur at Florence. The beautiful little terra-cotta
Madonna under a canopy close by is admirable in feeling. Opposite it,
characteristic decorative work of the Renaissance. Then, =**=Donatello’s
naïf Young St. John, the Patron Saint of Florence, is another exquisite
example of this beautiful sculptor. The open mouth is typical. A
Lucretia, near it, indicates the general tendency to imitate the
antique, still more marked in the relief of a funeral ceremony, where
the boy to the R is especially pleasing. Do not overlook a single one of
the Madonnas in this delightful room: the one above the funeral relief,
though skied, is particularly pleasing. Even the large painted wooden
Sienese Madonna in the centre, though the merest church furniture, has
the redeeming touch of Italian idealism. The busts of Roman emperors,
imitated after the antique, betray on the other hand the true spring of
Renaissance impulse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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