(FLORENCE)
]
When we turn to the _putti_ who are not Christs nor perhaps angels,
little laymen dancing in a _rondo_ or joyous in procession, or
decoratively employed, loaded with thick wreaths of flower, fruit, and
leaf, laurel, pomegranate, and convolvulus, it is still more difficult
to remember that Luca della Robbia and Angelico da Fiesole were of the
same age; according to one computation the one but a year older than the
other. Luca with his ware not only was a liberal student of nature, but
was free enough to use his material gaily. The painter meanwhile was
moving with the stiffness of experiment; we might place his child in a
church of the early Gothic that had long ceased when he was painting,
but Luca della Robbia’s enamel _puttino_ would seem in place in any age
of worthy architecture. Stone, colour, and the Della Robbia ware had
their several historic ages, concurrent, but different. More than sixty
years later, two other contemporaries, Andrea della Robbia and
Botticelli, show something of the same contrast, generally in a lesser
degree; but in one respect the contrast of the two later men is equal to
that of the two earlier—the anatomy of Botticelli was still reckless, at
any rate in the draped figure, whilst that of Andrea della Robbia was
easily correct. Botticelli, indeed, follows Angelico, his much less
expert predecessor, precisely in a strange ideal of the female figure;
both feign that the body has a long region from the ribs to the hip;
they interpolate a tract, as it were, unknown to nature. Below this,
Botticelli sets the jutting legs of his Graces. Below this, in like
manner, but under draperies that disguise the manner of junction, Fra
Angelico discreetly places the limbs of his seated figures, with
entirely arbitrary knees. It is worth noting that Botticelli does not
play this anatomical prank with the nude figure in his beautiful “Birth
of Venus.” This, however, is not a matter of childish proportion;
Botticelli habitually tries for the right proportions of nature in his
children.
[Illustration:
_Alinari_