1145. SAMSON AND DELILAH.
Andrea Mantegna (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.
Samson, whose giant's strength lay in his hair, fell into the toils of Delilah (Judges xvi.), who delivered him to his enemies by cutting off his hair as he lay asleep. On the trunk of the olive tree behind, Mantegna has carved the moral he drew from the tale: "Foemina diabolo tribus assibus est mala peior" (woman is a worse evil than the devil by the three pennies which bind you to her).[227] But though Mantegna has taken his subject from the Bible, his treatment of it is in the classical spirit. "Apart from the fact that her attention is directed to the mechanical operation, Delilah's expression is one of absolute and entire unconcern. Look of cunning, or of deceit, or of triumph there is none. Mantegna was not the man to shirk expression when he deemed the subject required it; probably, therefore, he left the features impassive in obedience to the formula of a certain school of antique sculpture, that all violent emotion should be avoided" (see Times, June 18, 1883).
1147. HEADS OF NUNS.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Sienese: died about 1348).
Ambrogio, the younger brother of Pietro Lorenzetti (see 1113), was the greatest of the early Sienese painters. His series of frescoes in the Sala della Pace in the Palazzo Publico of Siena, typifying good and bad government, are known to every traveller. They are full both of artistic beauty and historical interest (see the description by Symonds in his Sketches and Studies, iii. 43). The heads of many of Ambrogio's allegorical figures are of great beauty and grandeur—especially that of Peace, which is of classical dignity and may possibly have been modelled on the lines of some antique sculpture.
The work before us is a mere shattered fragment of fresco (from a church in Siena), but it is enough to show the artist's feeling for the true portraiture that identifies character with likeness. The nuns' faces are typical of the strong yet tender qualities developed in a life of seclusion and self-sacrifice.
1148. CHRIST AT THE COLUMN.
Velazquez (Spanish; 1599-1660). See 197.