_Filippino Lippi_ (Florentine: 1457-1504). _See 293._
_See also_ (p. xx)
This picture[202] (like 592, _q.v._) is often ascribed to Botticelli,
from whom Filippino learnt his fondness for the circular form. Every
one will recognise too the resemblance to Botticelli in the daintiness
of the dresses, the trappings of the horses (especially in the middle
of the foreground), and the other accessories (such as the head-dresses
of the Magi on the right). Vasari, indeed, says of Filippino that "the
ornaments he added were so new, so fanciful, and so richly varied, that
he must be considered the first who taught the moderns the new method
of giving variety to the habiliments, and who first embellished his
figures by adorning them with vestments after the antique." Filippino
and later painters give these embellishments to angels as well as
to men; and Vasari, it will be seen, considered it altogether an
improvement. Some remarks on the other side will be found in _Modern
Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 14 ("Of the Superhuman
Ideal"). "The ornaments used by Angelico, Giotto, and Perugino (see,
_e.g._ 288) are always of a _generic_ and _abstract_ character. They
are not diamonds, nor brocades, nor velvets, nor gold embroideries;
they are mere spots of gold or of colour, simple patterns upon
_textureless_ draperies; the angel wings burn with transparent crimson
and purple and amber, but they are not set forth with peacocks' plumes;
the golden circlets gleam with changeful light, but they are not beaded
with pearls nor set with sapphires. In the works of Filippino Lippi,
Mantegna, and many other painters following, interesting examples may
be found of the opposite treatment; and as in Lippi the heads are
usually very sweet, and the composition severe, the degrading effect of
the realised decorations and imitated dress may be seen in him simply,
and without any addition of painfulness from other deficiencies of
feeling." In addition to the minor ornamentation, one may notice in
this picture the crowded groups of spectators which Filippino was fond
of introducing. But so harmoniously are they grouped in six principal
groups that the spectator will at first probably be surprised to hear
that there are as many as seventy figures in the picture.