Renaissance in Italy, Volume 3 (of 7): The Fine ArtsSymonds, John Addington
History
Renaissance in Italy, Volume 3 (of 7): The Fine Arts
Symonds, John Addington
Art, Italian
This does not, however, interfere with the truth that sculpture, like all
the arts, assumed a somewhat different character in each Italian city. The
Venetian stone-carvers leaned from the first to a richer and more
passionate style than the Florentine, reproducing the types of Cima's and
Bellini's paintings.[111] Whole families, like the Bregni--classes, like
the Lombardi--schools, like that of Alessandro Leopardi, worked together
on the monumental sculpture of S. Zanipolo. In the tombs of the Doges the
old Pisan motive of the curtains (first used by Arnolfo di Cambio at
Orvieto, and afterwards with grand effect by Giovanni Pisano at Perugia)
is expanded into a sumptuous tent-canopy. Pages and genii and mailed
heroes take the place of angels, and the marine details of Roman reliefs
are copied in the subordinate decoration. At Verona the mediaeval tombs of
the Scaligers, with their vast chest-like sarcophagi and mounted warriors,
exhibit features markedly different from the monuments of Tuscany; while
the mixture of fresco with sculpture, in monuments like that of the
Cavalli in S. Anastasia, and in many altar-pieces, is at variance with
Florentine usage. On the terra-cotta mouldings, so frequent in Lombard
cities, I have already had occasion to touch briefly. They almost
invariably display a feeling for beauty more sensuous, with less of
scientific purpose in their naturalism, than is common in the Tuscan
style. Guido Mazzoni of Modena, called Il Modanino, may be mentioned as
the sculptor who freed terra-cotta from its dependence upon architecture,
and who modelled groups of overpowering dramatic realism. His "Pietà," in
the Church of Monte Oliveto at Naples, is valuable, less for its
passionate intensity of expression than for the portraits of Pontano,
Sannazzaro, and Alfonso of Aragon.[112] This sub-species of sculpture was
freely employed in North Italy to stimulate devotion, and to impress the
people with lively pictures of the Passion. The Sacro Monte at Varallo,
for example, is covered with a multitude of chapels, each one of which
presents some chapter of Bible history dramatically rendered by life-size
groups of terra-cotta figures. Some of these were designed by eminent
painters, and executed by clever modellers in clay. Even now they are
scarcely less stirring to the mind of a devout spectator than the scenes
of a mediaeval Mystery may have been.
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