FRESCOS BY ANDREA DEL SARTO, LUINI, G. FERRARI, RAFFAELLE AND MICHAEL
ANGELO
In the anterior court of the Church of the Santissima Annunziata, in
Florence, there are five fairly well-preserved frescos by Andrea del
Sarto (1488-1530). In the same court there are others painted by his
pupils, and contemporary artists. The best of the five by Andrea is the
“Death of St. Filippo,” where a young man is raised to life by the dead
body of the saint. The colouring is very strong and luminous, and has
the soft melting character of the various tones into each other, which
distinguishes the work of this painter, more especially seen in his
easel pictures. The next fresco in importance of this series is that
which represents the miracles wrought by the robes of St. Filippo, where
children are healed by touching his garments. The colouring of this
painting is lively and fresh, and the effect of light and shade is a
very important feature in the work. The backgrounds of these frescos,
whether architectural or landscape, are at present exceedingly light in
tone, which either means that these parts have faded or have been
destroyed by cleaning. This causes the figures to look completely out of
tone with the pale backgrounds.
The Brera Palace at Milan contains a great number of small and extremely
interesting frescos, that have been removed from various churches and
suppressed convents in the city and neighbourhood, among which are some
very good examples of Bernardino Luini’s work (1470-1530?). Luini was
the most famous scholar of Leonardo da Vinci, and was so greatly
influenced by the latter that many pictures had for a long time been
ascribed to his master. He was a most prolific and industrious artist,
both in fresco and in easel pictures, and as a rule his work is full of
grace and charm. The female figures and children painted by Luini are
always characterized by their easy natural poses, and have a refined
delicacy and sweetness of expression. His colouring, always rich and
warm in tone, is chiefly distinguished by its freshness and purity;
these qualities are best seen in his smaller frescos, now in the Brera
galleries. In the entrance corridor there is an example of his fresco
work, brought from the Church of St. Maria di Brera, in Milan. The
subject is the “Virgin and Child,” with an angel and two other figures,
St. Abate, and St. Barbara, and a boy with a lute. The colour and
drawing of this example are extremely good, though the general
composition is lacking in
[Illustration: _Photo. Alinari._]
[_To face p. 64._
PLATE 31.--FRESCO, INFANT ANGEL
_Luini, Brera, Milan_]
[Illustration: _Photo, Alinari_]
[_To face p. 65._
PLATE 32.--THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN AND ST. MARTHA
_Luini, Fresco in the Brera, Milan_]
cohesion and unity. The “Burial of St. Catherine” is also in the Brera.
It is a small fresco brought from the Convent della Pelucca, and is one
of the more successful works of Luini. Three finely designed angels are
carrying the body of St. Catherine, below which is the tomb. The robes
of the saint are red in colour, while those of the angel on the right
are purple; the middle, green; and the angel to the left has yellow
drapery. The best work, however, by Luini in the Brera is the beautiful
fresco, in the Sala XVI, of the “Virgin and Child” with St. Martha, St.
John, and a nun. In this work the landscape background is remarkably
fresh and pure in colour, and is painted in a very naturalistic manner,
the treatment of the trees, and details of the landscape reminding one
forcibly of a picture by Constable. There are some fine passages of
luminous and harmonious colouring in the draperies, the faces of the
figures have a tenderness and purity of expression, and the whole work
is a convincing example of the master at his best. Being on a level with
the eye, and in a good light, one is enabled to see in this fresco that
Luini’s method of painting consisted in his first modelling the forms in
a solid impasto, and afterwards finishing his work, like the majority of
Italian fresco painters, by shading transparently in finely hatched
lines.
There are other examples of Luini’s fresco work in the Brera, consisting
chiefly of heads and figures of boys. In the old Romanesque basilica
church of St. Ambrogio at Milan, in the first chapel of the left aisle,
is a fresco by him, the “Ecce Homo,” in a fairly good state of
preservation, and in the sixth chapel of the right aisle is his work,
the “Legend of St. George.” The Church of St. Maria della Grazie in the
same city contains his fresco of the “Virgin Enthroned,” with saints
around, the colour and composition of which are good, but an injurious
dusty bloom has appeared on some portions of this fine work. Numerous
examples of Luini’s fresco decorations may be seen in the Church of St.
Maurizo (Monastero Maggiore), including the large “Crucifixion,” on the
wall over the entrance to the choir. This great work contains nearly 140
figures, many of which are of singular beauty. At Saronno, not far from
Milan, in the Church of the Santuario there are also some very important
frescos by Luini, representing scenes in the history of the Virgin, the
best of which is a very fine “Adoration of the Magi.”
Gaudenzio Ferrari (1484-1549) was another Milanese painter, though a
native of Piedmont, but Milan and its neighbourhood was strictly
speaking the centre of his labours. He was a follower of Leonardo da
Vinci, although he had worked with Perugino, and later with Raffaelle.
He painted numerous frescos in Milan, Saronno, and Varallo; most of them
are characterized by life and animation of pose in the figures, and as a
rule his works contain many figures of great merit and beauty,
[Illustration:
[_To face p. 66._
PLATE 33.--ST. LUCY SENTENCED TO DEATH
_Jacopo D’Avanzo, Church of St. Anthony, Padua_]
showing fine qualities of freedom in the execution. But his work as a
whole is unequal, owing to his tendency of allowing himself to be
influenced by that of his contemporaries. The best of his frescos are
those which are most Luinesque in style and character.
In the side entrance of the right aisle, in the Church of St. Ambrogio,
in Milan, Ferrari has painted the frescos, “Christ bearing the Cross,”
and the “Three Marys”; the latter, though darkened much, is in a good
state of preservation, and is now under glass. At Saronno, in the Church
of the Santuario, he has decorated the cupola with an assemblage of
angels and winged boys, some of which are designed with great spirit,
and are beautifully painted. Later work by Ferrari is the fresco
decoration of the fourth chapel in the right aisle of St. Maria delle
Grazie (1542), where he painted the powerful compositions of the
Passion, namely, the “Crucifixion,” the “Scourging of Christ,” and
“Christ Crowned with Thorns.” The figures are life-size, and are
characterized by much animation, strong colouring, and great freedom of
execution.
The works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo in fresco painting which adorn
the Stanze of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, respectively, have
been so much described, and are so well known to students, that any
criticism which might be offered here would amount to an unstinted
appreciation of their labours. It goes without saying that it is a very
serious thing for the sake of Italian Art that so much of the finest
work of these masters has either gone very dark and dirty, or, what is
worse, has in places almost perished by the disintegration of the
colours. The large fresco of the “School of Athens,” in the Stanze of
the Vatican, probably the best work in fresco from the hand of
Raffaelle, is now quite different from what it must have been when first
it was painted. The composition of the figures and some portions of the
original colours still remain, but all else must be entirely changed.
Even where the original colour is still on the wall, such parts are
extremely blackened by age and dirt, but the architectural background,
the central flight of steps, and the foreground around and between the
figures are, on the contrary, much lighter in tone than they must have
been originally, and consequently all the shade and shadows, which
formerly connected the masses of the figure groups together, have
disappeared. The present extreme lightness of tone which surrounds the
dark figures, unduly emphasizes the latter, and gives an unsatisfactory
and very spotty appearance to the general composition, which is at
variance with the early engravings and copies of this fresco. It is
quite likely that the present aspect of this great work is due to the
fact that the cleaners and restorers engaged on it from time to time
have employed their cleansing energy on the background more than on the
figures, and have cleaned off the dirt,
[Illustration: _Photo. Anderson._]
[_To face p. 68._
PLATE 34.--THE FIRE IN THE BORGO
_Raffaelle, Stanza dell’ Incendio, Vatican, Rome_]
[Illustration: _Photo. Braun, Clément et Cie._]
[_To face p. 69._
PLATE 35.--FIGURE OF ADAM, FROM THE CREATION OF MAN
_Michael Angelo, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome_]
and paint as well, so leaving this portion in a clean-looking or light
state; and if we bear in mind that the background work has in all
probability been painted much more thinly, or with less impasto, than
the figures, we can easily imagine that in the parts under notice there
has always been less body of colour to be destroyed by the cleaners. It
is also noticeable that where a blue or grey colour has been used in the
draperies, the painting of such parts has badly perished, which suggests
that either a vegetable or a copper-blue pigment has been used, instead
of a cobalt or an ultramarine blue, or that these parts have been
afterwards repainted in tempera. The other frescos in this room, the
“Mount Parnassus,” and the “Prudence, Fortitude and Temperance,” are in
a much better state than the “School of Athens.”
Michael Angelo’s great work in fresco, on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, is still, fortunately, in a fairly good state, but the “Last
Judgment,” on the altar wall, is very grimy, and in a much blackened
state. One cannot help thinking that a good deal of the dirt could be
removed from this work by a little judicious cleaning.
THE END
INDEX
Andrea del Sarto, 63-64
Architecture, 1
Architecture, principles of, 6
Arts of Peace fresco, 34
Arts of War fresco, 33-34
Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence, 39-40
Benozzo Gozzoli, 51-53
Borgia apartments, Vatican, 56-58
Brancacci Chapel, Carmelite Church, 47-49
Brera Palace, Milan, frescos at, 64-65
Brown, Ford Madox, 32
Brushes for fresco, 20
Buon-fresco, 9
Campo Santa, Pisa, 52
Cartoons, 16, 17, 24, 56
Cenacolo by Ghirlandajo, 61-62
Cnossus, 10
Colour sketches, 16, 36
Colours for buon-fresco, 17-19
Design in objects of general utility, 5
Drapery painting, 28-29
Egyptian tempera, 11
Encaustic painting, 9
Filippino Lippi, 47
Flesh painting, 25-27
Foundling Hospital, Florence, 59-60
Fra Angelico, 44-46
Fresco-buono, 12
Fresco-secco, 8, 11
Fresco, systems and methods, 8
Gaudenzio Ferrari, 66-67
Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 59-61
Giotto, 39-43
Giovanni da Udine, 57-58
Gloucester Cathedral, 31
Houses of Parliament frescos, 30
Intonaco, 15
Keim’s process, 9
Last Judgment fresco, 68
Leighton, Lord, 32-33
Luini, Bernardino, 64-66
Lyndhurst Church fresco, 32
Masaccio, 47-49
Masolino da Panicale, 47
Method of execution in buon-fresco, 23
Method of execution in spirit fresco, 36-37
Michael Angelo, 38, 50, 54, 68
Monastery of St. Mark frescos, 44-46, 61
Monumental painting, essentials of, 4
Mosaics, 3
Mycene, 10
Painting, 2
Parry, Gambier, 53
Perina del Vaga, 57-58
Perugino, 53-55
Pinturicchio, 56-58
Pompeii, 11
Poynter, Sir E. J., Bart., P.R.A., 16, 30
Raffaelle, 49, 67, 69
Retouching, 27
Riccardi palace, 51
Ruskin, 53
Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan, 66-67
Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, 54
Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 39, 61
Santissima Annunziata, Church of the, 63
St. Ambrogio, Milan, 66-67
St. Catherine of Alexandria, 58
St. Maurizo Church (Monastero Maggiore), 66
St. Stephen’s, Dulwich, 71
Saronno, Church of the Santuario, 66-67
School of Athens fresco, 68
Simon Memmi, 53
Sistine Chapel, 38, 54, 59
Spanish Chapel, 53
Spirit fresco, 31
Spirit fresco medium, 38
Spirit fresco painting, 9
Tempera painting, 9
Test brick for colour, 22
Thera, 10
Tiryns, 10
Undercoating, or ground tint, 21
Vasari, 40, 50, 56
Vatican, Loggia of the, 58
Victoria and Albert Museum, 33
Walls for fresco paintings, 14, 33
Walls, preparation of, 14, 33-34
Water-glass fresco, 9
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