DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61670#0337
LATER ASSISTED WORKS 183
in penitence. In these two wing-scenes the landscape is treated
with great effort at realism, little to the artistic advantage of
the work, for the result is trivial and toy-like. In the first,
S. Francesco and Frate Leone are in the foreground in a rocky
landscape, which stretches back over the brow of a hill
where cypresses stand out against the cloud-flecked sky. In
the middle distance is a church looking like a doll’s house from
the lack of atmospheric effect. On the other wing the land-
scape scene in which S. Jerome cuts himself with a stone before
the Crucifix is equally trifling. Giovanni, more painter than
sculptor by instinct, by painting landscape backgrounds in pale
colours upon the flat surface, gave to such scenes a certain
breadth and spaciousness not without value, but for these early
attempts at landscape little can be said. That they were
exceedingly popular however, the number of repetitions proves.
This Verna scene of S. Maria degli Angeli is, next to the
Madonna in Adoration, the most often repeated of Andrea’s
designs, both in Predella pictures and in larger reliefs.
The entire altarpiece was copied with variations by the
school for the Pieve of Santa Fiora, near Siena. The altar
for which it was executed being broader, each scene had to be
expanded to suit, and it is curious to see the mechanical way
this is done, with no thought for preserving the focus of the
compositions, which therefore, especially in the Predella reliefs,
has suffered considerably.
The scene of S. Francis receiving the stigmata is repeated
on a large scale in the Tabernacle of the Cappella Canigiani
in the Cloister of S. Croce, a very unequal work mostly exe-
cuted by assistants. The little Tabernacle itself is charmingly
designed, and the bust of S. Bartholomew in the Tympanum
is a fairly good imitation of the Pazzi S. John the Evangelist
by Luca, while the head of the young Tobias has the simple
charm of Andrea’s earlier work. Only in these parts is the
design of Andrea visible. The charming head of the Child is
placed on a badly-modelled and ill-proportioned body with
in penitence. In these two wing-scenes the landscape is treated
with great effort at realism, little to the artistic advantage of
the work, for the result is trivial and toy-like. In the first,
S. Francesco and Frate Leone are in the foreground in a rocky
landscape, which stretches back over the brow of a hill
where cypresses stand out against the cloud-flecked sky. In
the middle distance is a church looking like a doll’s house from
the lack of atmospheric effect. On the other wing the land-
scape scene in which S. Jerome cuts himself with a stone before
the Crucifix is equally trifling. Giovanni, more painter than
sculptor by instinct, by painting landscape backgrounds in pale
colours upon the flat surface, gave to such scenes a certain
breadth and spaciousness not without value, but for these early
attempts at landscape little can be said. That they were
exceedingly popular however, the number of repetitions proves.
This Verna scene of S. Maria degli Angeli is, next to the
Madonna in Adoration, the most often repeated of Andrea’s
designs, both in Predella pictures and in larger reliefs.
The entire altarpiece was copied with variations by the
school for the Pieve of Santa Fiora, near Siena. The altar
for which it was executed being broader, each scene had to be
expanded to suit, and it is curious to see the mechanical way
this is done, with no thought for preserving the focus of the
compositions, which therefore, especially in the Predella reliefs,
has suffered considerably.
The scene of S. Francis receiving the stigmata is repeated
on a large scale in the Tabernacle of the Cappella Canigiani
in the Cloister of S. Croce, a very unequal work mostly exe-
cuted by assistants. The little Tabernacle itself is charmingly
designed, and the bust of S. Bartholomew in the Tympanum
is a fairly good imitation of the Pazzi S. John the Evangelist
by Luca, while the head of the young Tobias has the simple
charm of Andrea’s earlier work. Only in these parts is the
design of Andrea visible. The charming head of the Child is
placed on a badly-modelled and ill-proportioned body with