Carpaccio is not a very great painter, but a charming one. His treatment
of light and water, of distant hills and trees, shows a sense of peace
and poetry, and though he is influenced by Gentile's splendid realistic
heads, the type which appeals to him is gentler and more idealised. His
fancy is caught by Oriental details, to which Gentile would naturally
have directed his attention, and of which there was no lack in Venice at
this time. All his episodes are very clearly illustrated, and his
popular brush was kept busily employed. He took a share with other
assistants in the series which Gentile was painting in S. Giovanni
Evangelista. In 1502 the Dalmatians inhabiting Venice resolved to
decorate their school, which had been founded fifty years earlier, for
the relief of destitute Dalmatian seamen in Venice. The subjects were
to be selected from the lives of the Saviour and the patron saints of
Dalmatia and Albania, St. Jerome, St. George of the Sclavonians, and St.
Tryphonius. The nine panels and an altarpiece which Carpaccio delivered
between 1502 and 1508 still adorn the small but dignified Hall of the
school. His "Jerome in his Study" has nothing ascetic, but shows a
prosperous Venetian ecclesiastic seated in his well-furnished library
among his books and writings. He is less successful in his scenes from
the life of Christ; the Gethsemane is an obvious imitation of Mantegna;
but when he leaves his own style he is weak and poor, and imaginary
scenes are quite beyond him. In the death and interment of St. Jerome he
gives a delightful impression of the peace of the old convent garden,
and in the scene where the lion introduced by the saint scatters the
terrified monks he lets a sense of humour have free play. The monks in
their long garments, escaping in all directions, are really comical, and
in conjunction with the ingratiating smile of the lion, the scene passes
into the region of broad farce. We divine the same sense of the comic in
the scene in St. Ursula's history, where the 11,000 virgins are hurrying
in single file along a winding road which disappears out of the picture.
In the principal scene in the life of St. George, Carpaccio again
achieves a masterpiece. The force and vivacity of the saint in armour
charging the dragon, lingers long in the memory. The long, decorative
lines of lance and war-horse and dragon throw back the whole landscape.
The details show an almost childish delight in the realisation of
ghoulish horrors. He rather injures his "Triumph of St. George" by his
anxiety to bring in the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem; the flying flags
distract the eye, and the whole scene is one of confusion, broken up
into different parts, while the dragon is reduced to very unterrifying
insignificance. His series for the school of the Albanians dealt with
the life of the Virgin, who was their special patron. Its remains are
at Bergamo, Milan, and in the Academy. The single figures in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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