Alinari photo] [Library, Siena
POPE PIUS II. AT ANCONA
The frescoes have been much retouched, though, on the whole, they are in wonderful preservation. Where the yellows and blues have been most repainted the effect is hard and glaring; but where the same colours are not meddled with, as in the Pope’s blue robe, and that of the Doge of No. X., Elizabeth’s robe, and the King’s mantle in the meeting of the bridal pair, and in most of the pinks and rose-reds, the tones are much softer and more pleasing. Only in the hall itself can we appreciate the way in which the open-air and indoor scenes are arranged and balanced and the architectural setting worked in so as to give lightness and distinction. The line of sight is high, about two-thirds of the way up the picture; this to some extent places the spectator in a wrong position, but the whole goes back, so that, far from being oppressed with a feeling of covered walls, a sense of space and withdrawal is conveyed that enlarges the room in a marvellous manner.
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; the last, an old man, pale and careworn, carried by loving friends, and behind him, an untroubled sea and the calm of sunset. The ceiling is a curious mixture of sacred subjects and mythological ones, after the manner of that in the Colonna Palace, but not very appropriate to the Pope’s Chapel; sporting of fauns and nymphs, Cupid riding on a green dolphin, grotesques, recalling the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, but richer in colour and more delicately harmonised. The dark oak, the blue and white-tiled floor, with the yellow crescent of the Piccolomini, and the pilasters repeating the blue and white, are all part of the design, in which there is one guiding hand. It is all well adapted to give brightness to the long room, so slightly arched, and lighted only from one end. The room is so beautiful that it is hard to say that it is mechanical—yet assuredly there is something stiff and academic about it, some loss of grace and the joyous sense of creation, a feeling that the painter was growing old and tired, and that the childlike enjoyment of beauty was less keen. 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.
[CHAPTER X]
PANEL PAINTINGS
IT is difficult to arrange Pintoricchio’s pictures into distinct groups. He wandered backwards and forwards between Rome and Umbria for so many years, and his art, during the whole time, though showing variations, never undergoes any radical change or development. He arrived early at a point which satisfied his employers, and there he remained. He did not attempt to try experiments, or to unravel new problems. He was almost always engrossed by great undertakings, and had little time to think of anything beyond getting them creditably executed in a given time.
“La préoccupation d’être original n’empêchait pas de dormir, encore moins de travailler, les artistes d’alors. Leur personalité ne s’élaborait que sur le tard, quand ils réussissent sans le chercher beaucoup à le faire éclore.”[32]
[32] Broussolle, Pélerinages ombriens.