_Orcagna_ (Florentine: about 1308-1386).
"From the time of Giotto to the end of the 14th century Orcagna
stands quite pre-eminent even among the many excellent artists
of that time. In sculpture he was a pupil of Andrea Pisano;
in painting, though indirectly, a disciple of Giotto. Few
artists have practised with such success so many branches
of the arts. Orcagna was not only a painter and a sculptor,
but also a worker in mosaic, an architect and a poet. His
importance in the history of Italian art rests not merely
on his numerous and beautiful productions, but also on his
widespread influence, transmitted to his successors through
a large and carefully trained school of pupils. In style as a
painter Orcagna comes midway between Giotto and Fra Angelico;
he combined the dramatic force and realistic vigour of the
earlier painting with the pure brilliant colour and refined
unearthly beauty of Fra Angelico. His large fresco paintings
are works of extreme decorative beauty and splendour, composed
with careful reference to their architectural surroundings"
(Middleton). His real name was Andrea di Cione, but he
was called by his contemporaries Orcagna, a corruption of
Arcagnuolo, the Archangel. "An intense solemnity and energy
in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he
touches inferior subjects, indicates that his home was among
the _archangels_, and his rank among the first of the sons
of men" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8).
Orcagna's father was a goldsmith, and the result of his early
training in the use of the precious metals may be traced in
the extreme delicacy and refined detail of his principal
works in sculpture. He used to note his union of the arts
by signing his pictures "the work of ... sculptor," and his
sculptures "the work of ... painter." As a sculptor and
architect, the principal work of Orcagna is the church of
Or San Michele at Florence. The great marble tabernacle is
"one of the most important and beautiful works of art which
even Italy possesses." Vasari also attributes to his design
the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria, but this
attribution cannot be upheld. As a painter, the chief works
of Orcagna are the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria
Novella. The "Paradise" is the finest of these compositions--a
work full both of grace and of majesty. These frescoes were
executed in 1350. In 1357 Orcagna painted the altar-piece in
the same chapel, and of about the same date is the altar-piece
now before us. The grand frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa
ascribed by Vasari to Orcagna are now attributed to other hands.
"In San Piero Maggiore," says Vasari in his life of Orcagna, "he
executed a rather large picture, the 'Coronation of the Virgin.'" This
is the picture now before us. The principal portion is numbered 569.
The other nine pictures (570-578) were originally portions of the
same magnificent piece of decoration. A model of the church for which
it was painted is held by St. Peter (among the saints adoring on the
spectator's left). This altar-piece, though a handsome piece of church
furniture, is not so favourable a specimen of the master's power as
are the works referred to above. Nevertheless these panels are full of
varied interest.
A certain quaint uncouthness should not blind us to Orcagna's wealth
of expressive detail. Thus, "in the sensitive cast of the Mother's
countenance, and in the refined pose of her figure, there is a rare
degree of eloquence, such as silently bespeaks a modesty which would
shun, a humility which would disallow, any sort of self-adornment.
Her Lord, to whose will she submits herself, is no less monumental in
dignity of combined power and tenderness. And in the celestial band
below, in the maidens that play and sing at the Mother's feet, despite
their quaint little almond eyes, there is a _naïveté_ of expression, a
simplicity and animation unequalled at so early a date. In particular
she who, singing behind the harpist, generously spends her soul in
impassioned songs, while others, agreeable to nature's truth, are
singing regardless of their song, interested only in what is around.
Again, in that dual company of holy men and women sitting about the
throne, reverence stills every feature, and a saintly singleness of
purpose keeps each eye as they look in loving adoration on Him whose
dying bought their soul's salvation, or as they lean towards Her
whose human heart petitioned them to Paradise" (A. H. Macmurdo in
_Century Guild Hobby Horse_, ii. 34). In the _Hobby Horse_ (a different
publication, No. 1, 1893), a musical expert calls attention to the
instruments shown by Orcagna. Thus "in the central compartment note the
portative organ, at that time in familiar use, with its gimlet-shaped
keys all of one light colour, and apparently, even in that early date,
chromatic in disposition. Five large drone pipes may be recognised,
from their being out of scale with the melody pipes. The second
instrument in the angelic band is the mediæval harp, the comb holding
the wrest, or tuning, pins being held here in an animal's mouth. A
third angel is furnished with a cither, also a favourite mediæval
instrument. It is ornamented in ebony and ivory, and has a plectrum
guard inserted in the belly, as in a modern mandoline. The fourth angel
has a viol of a clumsy form; it took another 200 years to arrive at the
graceful outline of the violin. The fifth has a psaltery. One angel has
a bagpipe; the chaunter or melody pipe has eight holes, the same number
the highland bagpipe has now." Variations of these instruments may be
noted in the subordinate pictures (A. J. Hipkins). An expert in another
art calls attention to the beauty of the patterns on the dresses of the
central figures, on the ground upon which the angels kneel and stand,
and also on the stuff hung at the back of the throne (Sydney Vacher:
_Italian Ornaments from brocades and stuffs found in pictures in the
National Gallery_).