enthusiasm of Cimabue. The attempt of certain scholars to dispose of
him as a myth has broken down. The late Mr. H. P. Horne found that
the documents cited by Dr. Richter to prove that Duccio executed the
Rucellai Madonna referred to another picture. I had also failed in
my estimate to consider fully the superb crucifix by Cimabue in the
Museum of Sta. Croce, a work of supreme artistic merit. In general my
defence of Cimabue, though right enough as far as it goes, appears
to me too timid and my estimate of his artistic quality far too low
(1920).
[26] The important position here assigned to the Roman school has been
confirmed by the subsequent discovery of Cavallini’s frescoes in Sta.
Cecilia at Rome (1920).
[27] “Drunken with the love of compassion of Christ, the blessed
Francis would at times do such-like things as this; for the passing
sweet melody of the spirit within him, seething over outwardly, did
often find utterance in the French tongue, and the strain of the
divine whisper that his ear had caught would break forth into a French
song of joyous exulting.” Then pretending with two sticks to play a
viol, “and making befitting gestures, (he) would sing in French of
our Lord Jesus Christ.”--“The Mirror of Perfection,” edited by P.
Sabatier, transl. by S. Evans.
[28] “Florentine Painters of the Renaissance and Central Italian
Painters of the Renaissance,” by B. Berenson.
[29] This was the first “representation” of the kind in Italy, and
is of interest as being the beginning of the Italian Drama, and also
of that infinite series of allegorical pageants, sometimes sacred,
sometimes secular, which for three centuries played such a prominent
part in city life and affected Italian art very intimately.
[30] The Master of the Cecilia altar-piece has been the object of much
research since this article was written, and a considerable number of
important works are now ascribed to him with some confidence. He has
been tentatively identified with Buffalonaceo by Dr. Siren. See _Burl.
Mag._, December, 1919; January, October, 1920.
[31] This quality is to be distinguished from that conscious
naturalistic study of atmospheric envelopment which engrossed the
attention of some artists of the cinquecento; it is a decorative
quality which may occur at any period in the development of painting
if only an artist arises gifted with a sufficiently delicate
sensitiveness to the surface-quality of his work.
[32] I cannot recall any example in pre-Giottesque art.
[33] Derived, no doubt, but greatly modified, from Cimabue’s treatment
of the subject at Assisi.
[34] The attribution of the Stefaneschi altar-piece to Giotto is much
disputed and some authorities give it to Bernardo Daddi. I still
incline to the idea that it is the work of Giotto and the starting
point of Bernardo Daddi’s style (1920).
[35] His name was Bianchi. ‘Faut il se plaindre,’ says M. Maurice
Denis in his Théories, ‘qu’un Bianchi, plutôt que les laisser périr,
ait ajouté un peu de la froidure de Flandrin aux fresques de Giotto à
Santa Croce.’
[36] This passage now seems to me to underestimate the work of
Giotto’s predecessors with which we are now much better acquainted
(1920).
[37] Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Florentine Paintings,
1919.
[38] Burlington Magazine, 1914.
[39] Introduction to Dürer’s Letters and Diary. Merrymount Press,
Boston (1909).
[40] See Plate, where I have also added Dürer’s version of the
subject. This is of course a new design and not a copy of Mantegna’s
drawing, though I suspect it is based on a vague memory of it. In
any case it shows admirably the distinguishing points of Dürer’s
methods of conception, his love of complexity, and his accumulation of
decorative detail.
[41] Athenæum, 1920.
[42] Burlington Magazine, 1904.
[43] Now in the possession of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.
[44] Burlington Magazine, 1907.
[45] As, for instance, in a wonderful drawing, “On the Banks of the
Tiber,” in Mr. Heseltine’s collection.
[46] It is not impossible that Claude got the hint for such a
treatment as this from the impressionist efforts of Græco-Roman
painters. That he studied such works we know from a copy of one by him
in the British Museum.
[47] Athenæum, 1904.
[48] Preface to Catalogue of second Post-Impressionist Exhibition,
Grafton Galleries, 1912.
[49] Burlington Magazine, 1912.
[50] I have had to paraphrase this passage, but add the original.
Whether my paraphrase is correct in detail or not, I think there can
be little doubt about the general meaning.
Plin., _Nat. Hist._, xxxv. 67: “Parrhasius ... confessione artificum
in liniis extremis palmam adeptus. Hæc est picturæ summa sublimitas;
corpora enim pingere et media rerum est quidem magni operis, sed in
quo multi gloriam tulerint. Extrema corporum facere et desinentis
picturæ modum includere rarum in successu artis invenitur. Ambire enim
debet se extremitas ipsa, et sic desinere ut promittat alia post se
ostendatque etiam quae occultat.”
[51] See No. 62, where, so far as possible, all the forms are reduced
to a common measure by interpreting them all in terms of an elongated
ovoid.
[52] Burlington Magazine, 1917: “Paul Cézanne,” by Ambroise Vollard
(Paris, 1915).
[53] This has been done. “Paul Cézanne,” by Ambroise Vollard (Paris).
[54] Vogue, 1918.
[55] Athenæum, 1919.
[56] 1920.