Evelyn March Phillipps

“ The sky is of pure black marble, the island of grey, the fields, the sea, and the figures of pale marble, engraved with dark lines and inlaying. In the middle sits Wisdom, crowned with flowers, and bearing a palm branch and a book. On one hand Socrates receives from her the palm; on the other a philosopher casts a collection of trinkets and baubles into the sea. On a lower plane, a company of pilgrims, the foremost of whom is presumably a portrait, climbs a path set with stones and thistles, and beset with serpents, lizards, a tortoise, and a snail. ”

“ In this, so Umbrian a characteristic, he was a worthy follower of Fiorenzo, the not unworthy second to Perugino, and a forerunner of Raphael. The ample and spacious setting of his groups takes off from their cramped and crowded effect. Where the action is awkward, or the colour heavy, the whole spirit is lightened and lifted as you breathe the air of those delicious landscapes, or wander in imagination under those high-poised arcades, or look out from a palace chamber at the freedom and sweet breezes of a mountain distance. ”

“ In the first fresco, whether we owe it to the young Raphael’s help or to the natural interest at starting, we recognise buoyancy and the love of experiment; and we have something of it again in the fairy-tale tableau, where the prince and the lady meet, but the colour has become gaudier and cheaper, the naïveté, the enchantment, the unconsciousness, have in some measure passed away, the tide of fancy is running lower, and it is now that we chiefly feel the lack of that well of science from which the artist can drink ever deeper as the years go by. ”

“ One sits down and falls asleep, another turns to shake his fist at Pleasure, a fair, naked woman, holding a cornucopia of flowers, and spreading a sail to catch the passing breeze. One foot rests on the ball of Fortune, as she steps off the shore on to a rudderless boat, and a young man, the last in the procession, casts back a wistful glance in her direction. This design is significant as showing what the painter could do when colour was denied him. The balance of the groups is kept with great art, and the outline of Pleasure is full of grace and daring. ”

“ The unity and balance of the whole, the variety, yet connection of the subject, the groundwork occupied, yet not crowded, free from spottiness and harsh transition. The palm tree filling the space on the right, the cypress on the left, the maintenance of the distances, relieve the fresco of all stiffness and flatness. The landscape is full of light and atmosphere. On the right we look away to a valley which has never lost the freshness of morning, on the left is a fairyland of sea and distant mountains and little far-away towns, gleaming, blue and mysteriously radiant. ”

“ The wistful, wide-eyed youths, the tender, dainty Madonnas and angels, the grave, richly-dressed saints and bishops, might all stand for princes, for maidens, and magicians in some enchanted realm of fairy. He does not take us into the region of the tragic, but his fancy, his invention, and resource are fertile and untiring; he leads us on, dazzling, entertaining us with a child-like amusement, disarming criticism by a lovable quality which enlightens us as to the natural sensibility of the painter’s mind, a sort of penetrating sweetness with which he can endow his creations. ”

“ All sorts of animals are made use of—a winged stag drinks from a cornucopia, sea-gods and mermaids are instructing nymphs to ride on dolphins, a sphinx plays with a dragon, satyrs are placed in a vintage scene, sirens beguile centaurs with music—all in the fancy of the Revival, exuberant, yet full of dainty grace. Bits of marble work strike the eye here and there—the heraldic bearing of Rovere, the eagle of Alidori; but there is little left to tell us of the glory of the princely house, of the great churchman who built it, or of the Umbrian master he employed to decorate it. ”

“ The distant objects are often as full in tone as the foreground; nowhere does the spirit of the composition rise into the sublime. On the other hand, the painter never forgets the purpose that has brought him here. With a self-restraint and a feeling for effect which are unerring, he hits upon the exact size, and keeps his compositions strictly within the picture and at the right distance from the eye. Raphael’s splendid creations in the stanze suffer because of their vastness of conception and execution compared to the narrow and inadequate space from which we view them. ”

“ In the radial lines of the pavement we recognise the example of Perugino in the Sixtine fresco. The whole scene in the stately halls opening out in a beautiful landscape, is full of soft dignity. The rose-pink of the angels’ robes, the [70] peacock-blues and greens of Mary’s garments, the rose-wreath, the lilies, make a luscious combination of colour. It is the impassionate character, the childlike and unconscious spirit of all Pintoricchio’s creations that gives them such a piquancy, in contrast to their splendid setting. ”

“ That Fiorenzo was impressed by the vigorous art of Signorelli, his neighbour of Cortona, is to be seen in his late work, “The Adoration of the Magi.” The young men, more strongly drawn than is customary with him, the kings in Eastern dress, the heads of Joseph and of the old king, the drawing of the hands and the Madonna’s draperies—all show a freer and closer study of nature, all point to some fresh impulse, the impression of a strong talent upon a weaker one. ”

“ The repose of the hall in its entirety is very striking; hardly a figure is in anything like violent action, all move and stand with quiet dignity, all the movement takes place well within the picture, and the extraordinarily clever use made of the sky, ceiling, floor, and wide retreating background, give us breath and air, and a sense of delight and freedom. In as many as eight of these frescoes we have an enthroned figure, yet treated with what variety and absence of monotony. The first scene shows us a joyous youth setting out on a stormy journey ”

“ It is the more remarkable that Pintoricchio is able to give us this charm of landscape, as he adheres to his early training, and finishes the most distant parts in delicate detail.
It is as a decorator that he holds his own most successfully among his contemporaries. It soon became apparent that no one could cover the walls of palace or chapel with an ornamentation so rich and gay, so advantageous to the position, so homogeneous in character. ”

“ The deepest interest of the picture centres in these fine portraits of men of the time, and in the landscape which, though this fresco is the most injured of all, is still beautiful in its varied light and shade, and in the lie of the ground in hill and slope and distant vale. ”

“ In the panel where San Bernardino raises a youth from the dead, a child playing with a dog recalls Pintoricchio’s putti on the pilasters at Siena. The young man on the right in the same scene, is supple and gracefully draped; a contrast to the wooden movements and stiff draperies of his fellow-pages. Even better is the youth reasoning, in a repetition of the same miracle, with his hand upon his hip and a dark cap perched upon his rippled curls. ”

“ In the “Resurrection” we have the broken tomb, the risen Saviour, and the guards in armour, set in a landscape of rocky ground and cypresses.
The principal figure, upon a gilded glory, set round with cherubs’ heads and tongues of flame and grasping a banner, is far too ill-drawn for the master, and [71] Schmarsow gives it entirely to a Lombard. The guards are all of a refined Umbrian type, full of spirit and intelligence, and Dr. Steinmann suggests that we may have here portraits of Cæsar Borgia and his brother, who at the time would be boys of seventeen and eighteen. ”

“ The face is well and strongly modelled, and the outline is simple and large. Sant’ Antonio of Padua on the opposite side, holding his flaring heart in token of burning love, is a feebler figure, and reminds us of some of Perugino’s weaker saints; but San Bernardino himself, in the midst, is full of striking individuality, and there is great simplicity and repose in the outlines of all three figures. Nowhere have more beautiful angels been painted. Pintoricchio has shaken himself out of the conventional slavery of Perugino. ”

“ In triangles, formed in the roof by heavy borders of grotesques, Pintoricchio has placed four sibyls, Erythrean, European, Tiburtine, and Samian. Each sits in a carved niche, on a throne with raised steps; the same thrones, on a smaller scale, as those in the chamber of the Arts and Sciences in Rome. Books, open or clasped, lie about the steps; at each end of the thrones are erected altars, inscribed with the mystic sayings of the inspired women. ”

“ Although Pintoricchio’s art was so much admired during his lifetime, it is difficult to show that it exercised much after-influence. Fascinating as it is in some ways, it represents the last survival of a dying school. The world to which he belonged, the taste which delighted in his creations, disappeared with him, and was replaced by an age of conscious modernism which was eager to sweep aside all that seemed archaic in the immediate past. ”

“ On the pilasters on either [49] side is a beautiful decoration of fruits and seed-pods in great masses, tied in with ribbons adapted from the antique, and resembling a framework by Mantegna in the Eremitani Chapel at Padua. The frescoes on the walls are separated by long slender candelabra with flaring flames, the stems formed of grotesques, masks grave and grimacing, climbing stags and gambolling putti. The arches of the roof have been profusely enriched with gold, and culminate in a blue and gold boss. ”

“ Æneas, in his flowing robes, kneels at the King’s feet; the throne with its ample steps is set in a splendid, open piazza, with the noble flight of steps leading up to the loggia and out into the blue landscape; little groups enliven the background; a man stabs at a woman on the balcony ”

“ The grouping in the burial procession is more successful than usual, and the light and shade more massed. The colouring of all the frescoes is exceedingly harmonious, the greenish greys of the background are very delicate, and the foliage in the fresco over [54] the altar must have been most beautiful. Touches of bright colour are brought in sparingly, and with good effect. Nothing more satisfactory is to be found in the Umbrian school up to now, than the tout ensemble of the altar wall. ”

“ We long to see them in a freer air. Their space seems to annihilate us, their thought is overwhelming and insistent.
Pintoricchio’s frescoes are a rich yet unobtrusive setting, they do not compel your attention, but only give the impression of a refined splendour of surrounding and a marvellous insight into beautiful harmony of colour. The effect of the light has been so nicely calculated that even when freshly executed, the walls would not have been over-brilliant for the brilliant scenes to which they formed a background. ”