DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62360#0212
DRAWINGS AND ENGRAVINGS
115
the last years of the century, and which repeats the
same figure as the former—the sorrowful mother,
seated on a low stool, bending her cheek bodingly
over her child.1
In his curiously misjudging criticism of Mantegna,
the Marchese Selvatico has compared his work to a
piece of learned music which can never cause a thrill of
emotion. 2 Let this engraving answer so warped a
judgment. Austere in his disregard of all that might
appeal to the senses, with an idea of humanity strong
and temperate, Mantegna is at all times tender and gentle,
as we have seen, in dealing with its weaker sides. Life
to him was intensely serious, full of high aspirations,
and infinite in its possibilities, and he embodied his
ideals in types of stately beauty, for whose equal we
must turn to the grandest period of Greek sculpture.
Let us close with the words of a contemporary
appreciator. Lorenzo da Pavia, maker of musical
instruments in Venice, student of art and friend of
Leonardo, Perugino and Giovanni Bellini, wrote to
Isabella d’ Este after his death : “What pain and grief
we suffer at the loss of our Messer Andrea Mantegna,
who was in truth a man who excelled in everything.
It is another Apelles we have just lost. I have faith
that the Lord God will employ him to do for Him some
beautiful work, but for me, I never hope to see again a
draughtsman or designer of so much beauty.”
1 It is significant of the domestic origin of this engraving that in the
first impressions there are no haloes.
2 Vasari, iii., 459.
115
the last years of the century, and which repeats the
same figure as the former—the sorrowful mother,
seated on a low stool, bending her cheek bodingly
over her child.1
In his curiously misjudging criticism of Mantegna,
the Marchese Selvatico has compared his work to a
piece of learned music which can never cause a thrill of
emotion. 2 Let this engraving answer so warped a
judgment. Austere in his disregard of all that might
appeal to the senses, with an idea of humanity strong
and temperate, Mantegna is at all times tender and gentle,
as we have seen, in dealing with its weaker sides. Life
to him was intensely serious, full of high aspirations,
and infinite in its possibilities, and he embodied his
ideals in types of stately beauty, for whose equal we
must turn to the grandest period of Greek sculpture.
Let us close with the words of a contemporary
appreciator. Lorenzo da Pavia, maker of musical
instruments in Venice, student of art and friend of
Leonardo, Perugino and Giovanni Bellini, wrote to
Isabella d’ Este after his death : “What pain and grief
we suffer at the loss of our Messer Andrea Mantegna,
who was in truth a man who excelled in everything.
It is another Apelles we have just lost. I have faith
that the Lord God will employ him to do for Him some
beautiful work, but for me, I never hope to see again a
draughtsman or designer of so much beauty.”
1 It is significant of the domestic origin of this engraving that in the
first impressions there are no haloes.
2 Vasari, iii., 459.