International studio (15.1901/1902(1902))

Domenico Morelli

“THE SICILIAN VESPERS :

An inspection of the Christ Walking the Waves,
Christ Tempted in the Wilderness, Christ Calling the
Disciples, and The Maries Going Up to Calvary,
gives a good idea of the Master’s inspiration. To
this group of pictures, full of religious pathos
or passion, belong the Jairus’ Daughter (a com-
paratively early work), the Christ Mocked, with
its bold chiaro-oscuro and the stroke falling from
outside the picture; and the terrible Tempta-
tion of S. Anthony. Of this last subject Morelli
has given us two versions. In one, the Saint
is in his cell and stands rigidly looking down
at the couch from which he has sprung in horror.
In the second, that reproduced in this article,
9°

the Saint is alone among
the rocks and trees. He
has crouched at the foot
of a precipice in a perfect
frenzy of terror, his crisped
fingers (rather suggested
by the play of light and
shade than distinctly
drawn) clutch at his cloak
and hold it tightly round
him, his eyes are fixed,
savagely fixed on the
Heaven whence alone he
expects aid in liberating
himself from his obses-
sions. His obsessions are
certainly very beautiful,
and, as befits the theme,
they are rather indicated
than painted with apparent
care. Morelli seems to
have dipped his brush in
light to paint the vision
which has finally driven
the saint from his mat;
and the mocking faces
which peer through the
trunks in the distance (in
the photograph they close
right in on the spectator)
are tantalisingly elusive.

Far removed from the
fierceness of St. Anthony
is the harmonious suavity of
the Madonna of the Golden
Stair. The original was
painted for Prof. Villari on
his marriage with Donna
Linda, the English authoress
who has translated his
works, and who was already at one with him
in her enthusiastic furthering of the cause of
Italian liberty. It now hangs in Madame

Villari’s drawing-room, between Morelli’s portrait
of the Professor and that of himself, near a
sketch for a seated Madonna, admirable for the
breadth and sureness of its colour-massing, and
three delicate pen-and-ink sketches of Arabs, one of
which evidently suggested the picture {Arab Im-
proviser) here reproduced. The Madonna is

superb in conception and execution. The stair-
way which she is descending (light gold-coloured,
with barely a touch of pink in a couple of scattered
roses at her feet) leads the eye without interruption

BY DOMENICO MORELLI