1478. THE CRUCIFIXION.
Giovanni Mansueti (Venetian: born about 1450).
Of the life of this painter little is known. The registers of San Giovanni, Venice, tell us that he was lame; and by his own authority we learn that he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and a believer in the miracle of the Cross, which took place in 1474, and forms the subject of a picture by him, now in the Academy of Venice. His pictures in that collection are interesting as illustrating Venetian costume and architecture, and Ruskin finds "much that is delightful in them." Mansueti's figures, says Kugler (i. 332), are short and stumpy, and he lacks the variety of expression and action of Gentile Bellini, and the brilliancy of colour and fancy of Carpaccio.
This picture—which is not a very ambitious or characteristic illustration of the painter—gives a symbolic representation of the Crucifixion. "In front of an architectural screen—on the right and left of which is an open tabernacle in sculptured stone, enclosing, instead of the usual statue of the Virgin or a saint, an angel singing, and holding an instrument of the Passion of our Saviour—lie the spear, and the sponge upon the reed. Between these is a Majesty of the usual type, the flesh of the Redeemer being, doubtless owing to the partial fading of the carnations or the fact of the under-paint coming through, more greenish and opaque than the Venetian artists, especially the school of Bellini, affected. At the foot of the group the Magdalen kneels in the act of kissing the Saviour's feet. On her left stands the Virgin, and on the same side are two men, representing, of course, the Magi and the shepherds who attended the nativity of our Lord. On our right stand SS. John the Baptist and Peter, in front of whom kneels a man who holds the pincers as an implement of the Passion. The picture, as becomes its origin, is bright in colour as well as in its effect and local tints, very carefully and almost laboriously as well as timidly drawn; the architecture would not discredit Peter Neeffs" (Athenæum, 24th October 1896). The picture is signed, and dated 1492.
1479. A WINTER SCENE ON THE ICE.
Hendrik van Avercamp (Dutch: 1586-1663). See 1346.
A winter scene such as Mr. Pater describes in his Imaginary Portraits (p. 91), with "all the delicate poetry together with all the delicate comfort of the frosty season," in "the leafless branches, the furred dresses of the skaters, the warmth of the red-brick house fronts, and the gleam of pale sunlight."
1481. A PHILOSOPHER.
Cornelis Pietersz Bega (Dutch: 1620-1664).
This painter, who lived and died at Haarlem, was the son of a sculptor and a pupil of Adrian van Ostade. "Though," says Havard (p. 148), "a more finished draughtsman, with more regard for grace of form and for the beauty of his figures, in all other respects he was very inferior to Ostade. When we notice his dry and heavy execution, his ruddy flesh-colouring, and his opaque shadows, we are surprised that he should have so far neglected the examples placed before him."