A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1152. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Martino Piazza (Lombard: early 16th Century).

Martino and his brother Albertino were painters at Lodi, where they worked both together and separately; there are many altar-pieces in the churches of that place by them. This picture is a signed work of Martino alone. The brothers belonged to the school which was established in Milan and its neighbourhood before the arrival of Leonardo; but in many of Martino's work the new influence is discernible. "The curly hair, his high finish and chiaroscuro, derived from a study of Leonardo, are distinctive traits" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxvi.).

Compare the type of countenance and form of the rocks with those in Leonardo's picture, 1093. For the subject of this picture see under 25.