The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 3 (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. 3 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
formation of the folds of his draperies, for the most part ill disposed
and vague, he the more willingly exercised himself in these schools. We
meet with a great number in different collections, and after beholding
one, we are at no loss to recognize the remainder, both from the heads
which are often repetitions of each other, and from the rosy tinge of
his fleshes, and of the general tone of his pictures. He was
extravagantly fond indeed of this last colour; which he often misapplied
in regard to the hands and the extremities of the fingers. For the rest
the composition of his colours was sweet; his shades delicate, in the
Correggio manner, and his profiles often borrowed from the antique,
while his whole handling was free and elevated.
Marco Liberi, his son, was not in any way comparable to his father,
either in point of dignity or beauty, when left to his own invention.
His forms are either caricatures, in a manner, of those of his father,
or are very inferior where they are original. This striking difference
may be observed in numerous collections, where their paintings of Venus
are placed together, as we see in that of Prince Ercolani at Bologna.
Still he was an excellent copyist of his father's works, a talent
possessed by many others of the same school, whose imitations are easily
mistaken for originals, even by professors themselves.
An excellent foreign artist ought not to be omitted in this place, one
who flourished during a long period, and taught and died in Padua. His
name is Luca Ferrari, from Reggio, fully deserving of being enrolled in
the _Abbeccedario Pittorico_. Although Guido's pupil, his style became
rather lofty than delicate; so that judging by the pictures that he
produced for Santa Maria della Ghiaja in Reggio, Scannelli pronounced
him a disciple of Tiarini. In some of the airs of his heads, however,
and in certain graceful motions, he shews himself not unworthy of the
character of the former master. In Padua there is a _Pietà_ of his at
San Antonio, of a very masterly kind, a picture that displays the rarest
beauty of colouring. In his pieces abounding with figures, like that of
the Plague of 1630, painted for the Domenicani, he does not appear to so
much advantage; nor had Guido, indeed, offered him any great examples in
this line, being accustomed rather to weigh than to number his figures.
Minorello and Cirello, two of his pupils and followers, continued to
support in Padua some relish of the Bolognese School. Their names might
be added to the dictionary above mentioned, as Rosetti seemed to wish,
and the former, who might sometimes be confounded with Luca, ought to
hold a higher place in it than the latter. Francesco Zanella deserves
likewise to be recorded there, as an artist of spirit, though neither
very diligent nor very learned in his art. He is esteemed almost the
Giordano of this city, from the great number of his works conducted in a
short time, and may be computed almost as the last of the school; for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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