(For the subject see 270.) The three little pictures by Francesco (639, 1106, 1381) are all noticeable for their dainty detail, often selected for symbolic meaning. Thus, notice here the vine with purple grapes supported on a dead tree which hangs over the figure of Christ—an emblem of life and death. The vine is the most ancient of all symbols of Christ and his Church, being founded on His own words: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." On the other side a bird is seen defending its nest against a snake which has crept up the tree; on the left is a beehive.
640. ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
Dosso Dossi (Ferrarese: 1479-1542).
Giovanni di Lutero, who adopted the name of Dosso Dossi, was the greatest colourist of the Ferrarese School. "His masterpiece is the great altar picture formerly in the Church of S. Andrea at Ferrara, but now in the public gallery of that city, and one of the principal art treasures of Italy. This sumptuous work, notwithstanding the irreparable injuries it had sustained from injudicious restorations and repaints, is still a perfect blaze of colour" (Kugler). The little picture before us gives an inadequate impression of the painter's powers. No. 1234 is more characteristic. For Dossi's real bent lay towards portraiture and romantic subjects. Portraits by him of the Dukes of Ferrara and of other personages are in the public gallery at Modena. Of his subject-pictures the "Circe" of the Borghese Gallery at Rome is the most sumptuous. The records of Dossi's career are scanty; but his works "point strongly to two widely different currents of influence, the one Venetian, the other Ferrarese." He is supposed to have been for some years at Venice, but to have studied first under the Ferrarese Lorenzo Costa at Bologna. "His education in art, the main characteristics of his style, and his long residence at Ferrara, where he was attached to the court, and where he chiefly worked, entitle him to a place in the Ferrarese School.... His colouring is much admired, and justly, for its force, brilliancy, and novel harmonies: but it would be a mistake to class it with that of the great Venetian masters who had a profounder knowledge and a purer ideal of colour" (Burton). Dossi's romantic genius was no doubt fostered by his friendship with Ariosto, who celebrated Dosso and his brother Battista in somewhat exaggerated terms, naming them in the same breath with Leonardo, Mantegna, Bellini, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian. "The name of Dosso," says Vasari ill-naturedly, "had then obtained greater fame from the pen of Messer Ludovico than from all the pencils and colours consumed by himself in the whole course of his life." Dosso was highly favoured, he adds, by Duke Alphonso, of Ferrara, "first because of his abilities in art, and next on account of his excellent qualities as a man and the pleasantness of his manners, which were advantages always highly acceptable to the Duke" (iii. 256). There are many pictures by Dosso in private collections in England. The exhibition of the Ferrarese School at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894 included thirteen of them. He is well represented at Hampton Court. "His works," says Mary Logan in an interesting appreciation of the painter, "are distinguished from all Venetian paintings by effects of light in dreamland rather than in the everyday world (and have in them) ... a fascinating touch of the bizarre" (Kyrle Society's Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court). Many pictures passing under other names have been restored to Dosso by Morelli (see his Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries, pp. 214-219).
641. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.
Ludovico Mazzolino (Ferrarese: 1480-1528). See 169.
A picture chiefly remarkable, like 169, for its accessories. Notice the ornamental sculpture, the paintings in imitation of bronze relievo, and the modelled plaster work on the walls.
642. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.
Garofalo (Ferrarese: 1481-1559). See 81.
It is interesting to compare this with other versions of the subject in the Gallery—e.g. 76, 726, 1417. What we may call the necessary component parts of the picture are all present—the angel with cup and cross, the sleeping apostles, a crowd with torches approaching. But Garofalo's picture seems cold and unimaginative as compared with Correggio's, Bellini's, or Mantegna's.