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
Yet it did not altogether perish; but was continued by Maffei, by
Carpioni, and by Cittadella, three artists who, compared with the
Maganza, sometimes appear to have sprung from the same academy, either
from having studied in Vicenza the models they imitated, or because the
style, which partakes both of that of Paul and Palma, was then in high
repute, as that of Cortona at another period among us. They were all
three, like Alessandro himself, rapid in their composition; and were
their pictures, even belonging to the city, to be enumerated, they would
most likely be found to equal those of all the other foreign or native
artists employed there. Francesco Maffei, from Vicenza, had been the
pupil of Peranda, some of whose unfinished pieces he completed. He next
undertook to imitate Paul Veronese, with a tolerable degree of spirit
and learning. His style is on a lofty scale; in so much that Boschini
entitles him the great mannerist, extolling him as the painter of
giants. Nor is he wanting in a certain grace peculiarly his; which
distinguishes him from the mannerists. His picture of St. Anna, at San
Michele di Vicenza, besides many works produced at the same place for
the public palace, and elsewhere, extremely poetical, full of fine
portraits, and coloured in the best Venetian taste, show that he was
able to compete with more skilful artists than Carpioni and Cittadella,
his contemporaries. And as he, perhaps, did not consider them very
formidable rivals, he did not finish his pieces with much care, leaving
many of his heads, besides other portions of his figures, incomplete;
scanty in his colouring, employing dark grounds, and altogether painting
rather for years than for ages. At San Francesco, in Padua, there is a
grand picture of his "Paradise," which, owing to this method, has lost
almost every trace of colour. This result extinguishes the praise which
Boschini bestows upon him, that with four touches of his pencil he could
make the observer raise his eyebrows with admiration, and is a very
excellent warning, we think, for over expeditious artists. Their
pictures may be said, indeed, to resemble certain children, the
offspring of unhealthy parents, who sometimes exhibit a florid
countenance in youth, accompanied with every other symptom of health,
but, declining as they advance, their constitution becomes exhausted in
a few years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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