File:The study and criticism of Italian art - second series (1902) (14582385640).jpg

Identifier: gri_33125001807748 (find matches)
Title: The study and criticism of Italian art : second series
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959
Subjects: Art, Italian Painting, Italian
Publisher: London : G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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rine Com-bat. In this, his least elaborated drawing, whichhe seems to have executed with the greatest easeand the least thought of outline, Mantegna is in anunusual degree pictorial, plastic and life-communicat-ing. We have here also the fullest roundness ofrelief; and, in addition, a rare effect of circumfusedair and water unifying the composition atmo-spherically. At the same time, the fire and spirit ofthe sea-horses, and the energy of the onset, sweepus out into the tide of their fierce life. Much of this fire evaporated with attention to linefor its own sake, as we shall readily perceive incomparing this cartoon with the finished engraving.The engraving is not so plastic, the atmosphericeffect has disappeared, and, with it, the pictorialcharm. What the line has gained in continuity, itcertainly has lost in life and force. Whither has thespirit fled from the horses ? You could hear themneigh and champ. It was a pleasure to pat theirbeautiful heads. The toss of their manes made the
Text Appearing After Image:
ANDREA MANTEGNA 55 air electric. How tame all this has grown in theengraving! Yet one other sketch in the simple technique ofsepia demands attention. It is a drawing lackingnone of the qualities which make the cartoon for the Combat delightful, and at the same time possess-ing attractiveness and power as a masterly renderingof a great theme—I refer to the Judith in theUffizi. Twice, and perhaps thrice, has Mantegna treatedthis subject; twice without colour, and once as apainting. Whatever point of view we choose to startfrom ; whether we regard the specifically artisticeffect, or the presentation of spiritual significance,we shall agree, I believe, in preferring the Judith of the Uffizi to the one in grisaille formerly belong-ing to Col. Malcolm, and now at Dublin ; or to thedoubtful one in Lord Pembrokes collection, paintedin tempera, and finished with the mincing primnessand the niggling precision of a miniature. We all know the story of Judith. She soothesher peoples enemy into a

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