The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 1 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth CenturyLanzi, Luigi
History
The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 1 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
which there is great richness of drapery, coloured in a new manner; and
other subjects, treated with vigour and originality, exhibit him in this
place greatly superior to his usual manner. The same observation applies
to the painters we are about to notice: such were the effects produced
by their emulation; by the sight of a city that is calculated to enlarge
the ideas of those who visit it, and by the judgment of a public that is
scarcely to be satisfied by what is above mediocrity, because its eye is
habituated to what is wonderful.
History does not point out the portion of this work that was performed
by Filippino Lippi; the son, as we have already observed, of F. Filippo.
It is however highly probable that he assisted; because he was his
father's pupil from a very early age, and because the taste of Lippi,
that delighted in portraying the usages of antiquity in his pictures,
appears to have been formed while he was still young, and engaged in his
studies at Rome. In the life which Cellini has written of himself, he
tells us that he had seen several books of antiquities drawn by Lippi;
and Vasari gives him credit for being the first who decorated modern
paintings by the introduction of grotesques, trophies, armour, vases,
edifices and drapery, copied from the models of antiquity; but this I
cannot confirm, because it was before attempted by Squarcione. It is
true that he excelled in those ornaments, in his landscape and in minute
particulars. The S. Bernard of the Abbey, the Magi of the royal museum,
and the two frescos in S. Maria Novella; the one the history of S. John,
the other of S. Philip, the apostles, please more perhaps by these
accessaries of the art than by the countenances, which, indeed, have not
the beauty and grace of the elder Lippi. They are faithful portraits,
but shew no discrimination. He was invited to Rome to ornament a chapel
of the Minerva, in which there is an Assumption by his hand, and some
histories of Thomas Aquinas, amongst which the Disputation is the best.
In this chapel he shews great improvement in his heads, but was
nevertheless surpassed in this respect by his pupil Raffaellino del
Garbo, who painted a choir of angels on the ceiling, that would alone
suffice to justify the name by which he was distinguished. In Monte
Oliveto at Florence, there is a Resurrection by Raffaellino, where the
figures are small, but so graceful withal, so correct in attitude, and
so finely coloured, that we can scarcely rank him inferior to any master
of that age. There is mention made by the learned Moreni, in the
concluding part of his "Memorie Istoriche," (p. 168) of another of his
beautiful altar-pieces, still in existence at S. Salvi, with the grado
entire. Some early pictures are in a similar state; but becoming the
father of a numerous family, he gradually degenerated in his style, and
died in poverty and obscurity.
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