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Page 34
"In some the little Christ looks as though he were trying to comfort his
mother."
"The angels look as if they longed to help both," were some of the quick
answers.
"Yes; _inner_ feelings, you see. Sometimes he put a crown of thorns
somewhere in a picture, as if to explain its expressions. His Madonna is
'pondering these things,' as Scripture says, and the Child-Christ and
angels are in intense sympathy with her. We long to look again and again
at such pictures--they move us.
"Another characteristic of his work is the action--a vehement impetuous
motion. You will find this finely illustrated in his _Allegory of
Spring_, a very famous picture in the Academy. His type of figure and
face is most easily recognizable; the limbs are long and slender, and
often show through almost transparent garments; the hands are long and
nervous; the faces are rather long also, with prominent rounded chins
and full lips. He put delicate patterns of gold embroidery about the
neck and wrists of the Madonna's gown and the edges of her mantle, and
heaped gold all over the lights on the curled hair of her angels and
other attendants. You can never mistake one of these pictures when once
you have grown familiar with his style.
"I think you should study particularly his _Allegory of Spring_ in the
Academy for full length figures in motion. You will find the color of
this picture happily weird to agree with the fantastic conception. Then
in the Uffizi Gallery you will find several pictures of the Madonna;
notable among them is his _Coronation of the Virgin_, painted, as he was
fond of doing, on a round board. Such a picture is called a _tondo_.
Here you will find all his characteristics.
[Illustration: BOTICELLI. UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE.
CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.]
"Study this first; study figures, faces, hands, and methods of
technique; then see if you cannot readily find the other examples
without your catalogue. A noted one is _Calumny_. This exemplifies
strikingly Botticelli's power of expressing swift motion. In the Pitti
Palace is a very interesting one called _Pallas_, or _Triumph of Wisdom
over Barbarity_,--strangely enough, found only recently."
"Found only recently; how can that be, uncle?" quickly asked Malcom.
"The picture was known to have been painted, for Vasari described it in
his 'Life of Botticelli,' but it was lost sight of until an Englishman
discovered it in an old private collection which had been for many years
in the Pitti Palace, suspected it to be the missing picture, and
connoisseurs agree that it is genuine. There was a great deal of
excitement here when the fact was made known. The figure of Pallas, in
its clinging transparent garment, is strikingly beautiful, and
characteristic of Botticelli. The picture was painted as a glorification
of the wise reign of the Medici, who did so much for the intellectual
advancement of Florence."
Then Mr. Sumner told them that he was to be absent from Florence for a
week or two, and should be exceedingly busy for some time, and so would
leave them to go on with their study of the pictures by themselves.
"I have been delighted," he said, "to know how much time you have spent
in going again and again to the churches and galleries in order to
become familiar with the painters whom we have especially considered.
This is the real and the only way to make the study valuable. Do the
same with regard to the pictures by Ghirlandajo and Botticelli, and if I
have not given you enough to do until I am free again to talk with you,
study the frescoes by Filippino Lippi in Santa Maria Novella, and
compare them with those in the Brancacci Chapel; and his easel pictures
in the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. Get familiar also with his father's
(Fra Filippo's) Madonna pictures. You will find in them a type of face
so often repeated that you will always recognize it; it is just the
opposite of Botticelli's,--short and childish, with broad jaws, and
simple as childhood in expression. I shall be most interested to know
what you have done, and what your thoughts have been."
"We certainly shall not do much but look at pictures for weeks to come,
uncle; that is sure!" said Malcom, "for the girls are bewitched with
them, and now that they think they can learn to know, as soon as they
see it, a Giotto, a Fra Angelico, a Botticelli, or a Fra Filippo Lippi,
they will be simply crazy. You ought to hear the learned way in which
they are beginning to discourse about them. They don't do it when you
are around."
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