Milan (Italy) -- Description and travel; Milan (Italy) -- History
Carlo Crivelli fills the rest of the room with a wealth of colour and
beauty. Madonna and Child with SS. Peter and Dominic (201) is so
exquisite a picture, so lovely in colour and design, that one feels the
last word has been said in an art that combines the highest decoration
with a true and childlike religious feeling. Who has ever imagined a
more pure and innocent creature than this lovely Madonna who sits with
such unconscious grace in her rich garments on the stately throne? The
Child, too, is so sweet as he earnestly squeezes a dove in both hands.
The young S. Geminianus has the ardour of a martyr. The whole picture is
a very exquisite harmony of colour and line. Coronation of Christ and
the Virgin by the Eternal Father (202), signed and dated 1493, is a
superbly decorative work glowing with rich colour. The flying angels
seem really beings of the air, and the devout saints really dwellers in
Paradise. S. Catherine and S. Sebastian are especially beautiful. The
Pietà above (203) is very fine in composition, and the Christ is godlike
with His long golden hair. The Crucifixion (206) is a restless
composition. Crivelli has striven so hard to express his emotion, but
the result is an exaggeration of forms and movement. There is no repose
anywhere, draperies flying, fingers contorted; even the sky is in
troubled wavelets. Madonna of the Candle (207). In this beautiful panel
the Madonna sits like a goddess on her high throne, yet has all the
sweetness of humanity. The perfect oval of her face and symmetry of her
form are drawn by a master’s hand. The rich garland of fruits and the
roses and lilies are painted with a loving care. There are also two
panels of saints by Crivelli (204 and 205).
Sala X. contains Venetian pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. There are four small pictures by Cima (217, 218, 219 and
220), charming little pictures in which there is more life and movement
than in his larger works. Adoration of the Magi (223) by Stefano da
Zevio, dated 1435, is a pleasing picture, showing the early Veronese
character. The decorative Polyptych (228) is by Antonio Vivarini and
Giovanni da Murano.
In Sala XI. we have Venetian schools of the sixteenth-eighteenth
centuries. Two landscapes by Canaletto (235 and 236) are full of light
and air. Guardi has two views of the Grand Canal at Venice (242 and
243).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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