International studio (18.1902/1903)

picture in the least, either passed by without taking
any notice of it, or iaughed at it without knowing
why. The so-calied connoisseurs pronounced the
artist aitogether second-rate; only here and there
some critic tried to rectify the wrong impression
given, without, however, achieving any satisfactory
result. I, for my part, having realised on the
opening day of the Exhibition, that a great battle
would be waged around this, the boldest, the most
iyricai of aii the canvases of Previati, wrote an
article in ^7*M, in which I endeavoured to
expiain the sesthetic, the poetic meaning of
-A/a^7*72;7y, a picture which would probabiy be
rejected by the Hanging Committee, but my
article had no more than a negative result.
The picture is of considerabie size, and is an
ideai presentment of the sentiment of maternal
iove, representing as it does a mother suckling
her chiid, whiist a group of angels, supposed to
be visibie to her aione, are looking on. The
isoiated Hgure of the mother is near a tree, the
soft and pleasing shade of which recails the wil-
iow described by Alfred de Musset. The draw-
ing, the colouring of sky and ground, ali combine
to produce a harmony which is fuii of the in-
defrnabie mystery of a dream. No attempt at
rendering motion, no desire to produce a dehnite
and sensibie effect, here distracts the attention of
the spectator from the mystic meaning of the
conception of the poet-artist, whose aim has been
to work out an immaterial idea with the aid of the
material means of painting. As a resuit, the
critics, unable to comprehend the mystic spirit of
the conception, accused Previati of having com-
pieteiy iost the sense of colour ; some even going
so far as to add that he had iost that of iine as
weil, iittie dreaming that the painter of A/<2/<:7*7MA
had reaiiy approached the realisation of his ces-
thetic vision by correcting the ordinary modes of
expression, which in his opinion were not alto-
gether suitable for the sentiment of his picture.
Previati had, indeed, endeavoured to make
colour, generally one of the most defrnite means
of pictorial expression, all but immaterial; and
the drawing of his composition was really in
exact correspondence with his own emotions at
the time of his conception of the picture.
Previati told me himself that, convinced as
he is of the principle that emotion is the true
source of all creative or suggestive power, he
never dreams of reproducing in cold blood
either his paintings or his sketches. He never
takes brush or pencil in hand except when
he is in an exalted frame of mind, that is to
54

say, inspired ; and the work once done, product
as it is of that inspiration, even if it does not
conform to rules of drawing or to the conven-
tions of classic beauty, is never touched by him
again. In a word, Previati works himself up into
a state of exaltation, so that he may make his
own sensibility as vivid and contagious as possible,
hoping to communicate his own emotion, his own
poetic feeling, to the spectator. The ideal of others
is, of course, different: they aim at the correct
academic form they have been taught to respect, at
producing sensual effects of colour; but Previati
longs to light up the path of the soul, to realise the
ideal emotions, and on this account he may justly


" THE KISS " BY G. FREVIATI