A history of Italian painting

by Frank Jewett Mather

CHAPTER VI.

The High Renaissance. The indispensable books are, for leading ideas, J. C. Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, New York, 1890; for the stylistic development in Art, H. Wölfflin, The Art of the Italian Renaissance, New York, 1913. Very valuable for history and biography are J. Addington Symonds’s The Renaissance in Italy, 5 Vols., London; and H. O. Taylor’s Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1920. For Renaissance ideals of nobility and moderation the capital contemporary work is Il Cortegiano, by Baldassare Castiglione, translated as The Courtier by L. E. Opdycke, New York, 1905. For stylistic analysis Berenson’s introductions to Florentine Painters, and to Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, are suggestive and important.

[61]. Gentile da Fabriano. A. Colasanti, Gentile da Fabriano. Bergamo, 1909. Also my Essay review. The Nation, Vol. 89 (1909) pp. 168–170.

[62]. Andrea da Bologna. The Nation (N. Y.) Vol. 95. (1912) p. 392.

[63]. Fifteenth Century Umbrians. Walter Rothes, in Anfänge ... der Alt-Umbrischen Malerschulen, Strassburg, 1908, gives excellent illustrations for the Early Umbrian Artists. Also for cuts, U. Gnoli, La Mostra Umbra, Bergamo.

[64]. Melozzo da Forlì. A. Schmarsow, Melozzo da Forlì, Berlin, 1886, and C. Ricci, Melozzo da Forlì, Rome, 1911, are the standard works.

[65]. Luca Signorelli. Maud Crutwell, Luca Signorelli, London, 1901. See Venturi, vii, as usual.

[66]. Pietro Perugino. Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. 2, ch. v, makes Perugino the direct pupil of Piero della Francesca, ascribing to Perugino many pictures formerly ascribed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The view while attractive is not wholly convincing to me. All of Perugino’s works are published in Klassiker der Kunst, No. XXV, Stuttgart, 1914. The best general estimate of Perugino is that of Wölfflin and of Berenson, in Central Italian Painters.

[67]. The Cambio frescoes. While it is inherently likely that Raphael worked on these frescoes, Prof. Venturi’s plea for Raphael’s authorship of God, the Prophets and Sibyls, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. 2, p. 828 ff. depends largely on the shaky evidence of drawings attributed arbitrarily to Raphael.

Raphael and Michelangelo. From the point of view of pure style the best treatment of these artists and of the High Renaissance is that of Heinrich Wölfflin in The Art of the Italian Renaissance, New York, 1913. It is a book that every student should read and if possible own. Mr. Berenson’s treatment of space composition, in the introduction to Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, is perhaps his finest achievement in criticism.

[68]. Raphael. Hermann Grimm’s two volume Life of Raphael is still valuable for background. Among the numerous popular books in English none is outstanding. Henry Strachey’s Raphael, in “Great Masters of Art,” is good, and so are Julia Cartwright’s two monographs: The Early Work of Raphael and Raphael in Rome, in the Portfolio Series, London, 1895.

For Raphael’s participation in the frescoes of the Cambio it seems to me that Professor Venturi, in Storia dell’ Arte Italiana, Vol. VII, part 2, makes out only a plausible case.

Reproductions of all of Raphael’s works in Klassiker der Kunst, No. I., Raphael, Stuttgart and Leipzig.

Among the innumerable essays on Raphael none is more understanding than John La Farge’s, in Great Masters, New York, 1903.

[69]. Michelangelo. The best source for the study of Michelangelo, painter, is the superb plates in Ernst Steinmann’s Die Sixtinische Cappelle, Munich, 1901. Among recent short biographies that of Charles Holroyd, Michelangelo, London and New York, 1911 and Romain Rolland (a longer study, The Life of Michelangelo, New York, 1912; a different and shorter work, Michelangelo, a Study, &c., New York, 1915) are perhaps the best. The two volume biographies by Hermann Grimm and by J. Addington Symonds are valuable, especially for historical background. But the reader may be wise to content himself with one of the brief biographies and such contemporary lives as Vasari’s, Ascanio Condivi’s, and Francesco d’Olanda’s. The two latter are translated in Holroyd’s book. The drawings of Michelangelo are admirably discussed and presented in a perfect selection by Mr. Berenson in The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. The drawings are chronologically arranged and beautifully reproduced by Karl Frey, Die Handzeichnungen Michelangelo’s, 2 vols., Berlin, 1911. W. R. Valentiner treats The Late Years of Michelangelo (New York, 1914) with insight, devoting himself chiefly to the more finished drawings. For a brief yet comprehensive survey, John La Farge in Great Masters, New York, 1903. The works are completely reproduced in Klassiker der Kunst, No. VII. Michelangelo, Stuttgart and Leipzig.