_Carlo Crivelli_ (Venetian: painted 1468-1493).
Crivelli is one of the most individual of painters, and no
collection is so rich in his works as the National Gallery. He
was a native of Venice, and his work shows marked affinities
with the school of Padua. Of his life, little is known except
that in, or shortly before, the year 1468 he settled at Ascoli
in the Marches of Ancona. In that neighbourhood he seems to
have spent the rest of his life, in the employment mainly
of various religious fraternities. He thus lived somewhat
outside the artistic world of his time, a fact which serves
to explain the rather conservative character of his art.
Thus he adhered to the _tempera_ medium. He adhered also to
the Byzantine traditions of the old Venetian School with its
fondness for the "ancona," or altar-piece consisting of many
single figures each in its separate compartment, and for gilt
and silvered ornaments in high relief. There is, too, a vein
of affectation in his pictures which contrasts strongly with
the naturalistic tendency in contemporary Venetian art. Owing
to a little touch of vanity in the painter we are able to date
many of his pictures. For it is known that he was knighted in
1490, and so proud was "Sir Charles" of his new honour that he
signed all subsequent pictures "Carlo Crivelli, Knight." No.
724 is probably the first he finished after the reception of
the coveted honour. His love of accessories, and especially
of fruit, will strike every visitor; and so also will the
brilliance of his colouring and the unerring, if somewhat
harsh, exactness of his outlines. For tender pathos the present
picture is remarkable. His range was, as we shall see, somewhat
limited. He seldom attempted compositions on any large scale,
and his subject pictures are few: No. 739 is one of the best
of them. He excelled rather in single figures, and in these
we find expressed, "in quaint combination, morose asceticism,
passionate and demonstrative grief, verging on caricature,
occasional grandeur of conception and presentment, knightly
dignity, feminine sweetness and tenderness mingled with demure
and far-fetched grace" (Sir F. Burton). Up to the end of the
eighteenth century Crivelli's works were still to be found in
their original places, in the churches and convents of Eastern
Italy, where they attracted little attention. The suppression
of the convents after the age of the Revolution brought them
into notice, and English collectors purchased them in large
numbers. In recent years this appreciation has steadily
increased. The large altar-piece, 788, was bought in 1868 for
£3360. At the Dudley sale in 1892, the altar-piece, now in the
Berlin Museum, fetched £7350.
This little picture is part of an altar-piece formerly in a church at
Monte Fiore, near Fermo: other portions are at Brussels. The picture is
signed, but not dated; the piece of red watered silk which hangs over
the edge of the tomb is characteristic of Crivelli's earlier period.
Its prettily pathetic sentiment and brilliant tone make it one of the
painter's most attractive works. For some remarks on the subject, see
under 590.