International studio (40.1910)

The John G. Johnson Collection

Collection oj John G. Johnson, Esq.

ENTOMBMENT ATTRIBUTED TO GIULIO GSANDI

tonello of Messina into Venetian art. The per-
sonality of this artist is not easy to understand, but
we all feel his power, his intense reality. Theme
and craft, idea and form are one. His presentments,
as his assertive portraits, once seen, are never
forgotten. Mr. Johnson's Male Portrait gives us
an achieved and striking characterization. How
far Antonello affects and is affected by Venetian
and other north Italian art is a question of great
interest, not as yet entirely answered. We have
effects of the Paduan influence often to consider
in Venice and the Veneto, and the recently ac-
quired altarpiece, The Enthroned Madonna and
Saints, by Bartolommeo Montagna of Vicenza,
gives us a magnificent illustration of the Vivarini
tradition, carried out by a master of independent
initiative. We feel here the inexhaustible wealth of
Italy in those schools of art that are not absolutely
central. liven more important historically, but not
so monumental, is the Madonna here reproduced,
a silvery tuned image of an almost gipsylike type,
by Foppa,the founder in the Brescian and Milanes
region of a developed quattrocento style. The
representation in this milieu is centered for most of
us by a lovely Luini, but fine examples of less
familiar artists may be noted without detailed com-
ment—as The Madonna with Nursing Child, an
important altarpiece by Defendente Ferrari; an
Enthroned Madonna with a pensive Child and a
chubby infant John the Baptist, by Macrino

d'Alba; a Madonna and Saints, with the Instru-
ments of the Passion, near to Giovanone and show-
ing Leonardo's influence; an Annunciation of
Foppesque character, two decorative panels of the
Venice School with Homeric subjects, and an
Italo-Flemish, or Italo-French, Cardinal Saint with
Four Angels, a work of high interest labeled, in
some old collection, Gentile da Fabriano. Some
of these works which I pass with a word open up
whole chapters in the endless story of Italian
painting and will be of the greatest use to students.

There remains much to be noticed, particularly
in the Ferrarese and the Venetian schools. A
grandly impressive Entombment, in a lunette,
which we reproduce, is of nearly cinquecento type
and has been given conjecturally to Giulio
Grandi. Like the few compositions with which we
can compare it—Francia's, Fra Bartolommeo's,
Raphael's — this work, if a little academic in
feeling, is majestically conceived and worked
out, and it takes a high place in a monumental
series of essays in its supreme subject. It would
be interesting to consider with care how an ideal
of this kind develops from the dugento, as repre-
sented by a remarkable deposition at Wellesley
College, to end in such work as we see in Mr.
Johnson's very impressive Crucifixion by Guido
Reni—with the small Siennese Crucifixion and the
Crivelli Picta here for intermediate types—but the
inquiry would transcend our critical function.

CI