The golden atmospheric effects which were Perugino's greatest gift to
art, the feeling for distance, and for the sun-warmed calm of summer,
taught Pintoricchio new methods, modified without effacing the teaching
of Fiorenzo, and certainly led to a more natural treatment. That
Fiorenzo was impressed by the vigorous art of Signorelli, his neighbour
of Cortona, is to be seen in his late work, "The Adoration of the Magi."
The young men, more strongly drawn than is customary with him, the kings
in Eastern dress, the heads of Joseph and of the old king, the drawing
of the hands and the Madonna's draperies--all show a freer and closer
study of nature, all point to some fresh impulse, the impression of a
strong talent upon a weaker one.
The problems which absorbed the great master of Cortona had never much
attraction for Pintoricchio, who had not a scientific mind, and whose
artistic education, deficient to begin with, was brought to a premature
end by his sudden popularity. Yet something he drew from Signorelli, a
firmer treatment of the youths in hose and doublet, some attempt to
study limbs and muscle. The series left by Benozzo Gozzoli at
Montefalco, the paintings of Perugino and Signorelli, were the best
examples of form which came in Pintoricchio's way. They could not
succeed in making him very strong, but when he draws frankly from the
life, you need hardly wish for more telling portraits.
It would be absurd to claim for him sublime creative power, tactile
values, mastery over form and movement. He has none of these. His
persons rarely stand firmly upon both feet; his pages, his kings and
queens, are too often drawn and even coloured like playing-cards; his
crowds are motley and ill-arranged. The dry and purely scientific
student of the schools of Italy will find it more than easy to
demonstrate Pintoricchio's shortcomings: it is less simple to analyse
the charm that triumphs in spite of them, and which gives keen pleasure
to one side of the artistic nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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