DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0118
114
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
breadth in the drawing of his figures, the grouping,
and the contrast of light and shade, afterwards
carried to such perfection by Andrea del Sarto.
He was one of the earliest painters who introduced
landscape backgrounds, painted with some feeling
for the truth of nature; but the expression he
gave to his personages, though always energetic,
was often inappropriate, and never calm or ele-
vated : in the representation of sacred incidents he
was sometimes fantastic and sometimes vulgar; and
he was the first who desecrated such subjects by
introducing the portraits of women who happened
to be the objects of his preference at the moment.
There are many pictures by Fra Filippo in the
churches at Florence; two in the gallery of the
Academy there; five in the Berlin Museum ; in
the Louvre there is one undoubtedly genuine, and
of great beauty, marked by all his characteristics :
it represents the Madonna standing, and holding
the Infant Saviour in her arms; on each side are
angels and a kneeling monk. The attitude of the
Virgin is grand, the head commonplace, or worse ;
the countenance of the Infant Christ, heavy; the
angels, with crisped hair, have the faces of street
urchins; but the adoring monks are wonderful for
the natural dignity of their figures and the fine ex-
pression in their upturned faces, and the whole
picture is most admirably executed. It was painted
for the church of the Santo Spirito at Florence,
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
breadth in the drawing of his figures, the grouping,
and the contrast of light and shade, afterwards
carried to such perfection by Andrea del Sarto.
He was one of the earliest painters who introduced
landscape backgrounds, painted with some feeling
for the truth of nature; but the expression he
gave to his personages, though always energetic,
was often inappropriate, and never calm or ele-
vated : in the representation of sacred incidents he
was sometimes fantastic and sometimes vulgar; and
he was the first who desecrated such subjects by
introducing the portraits of women who happened
to be the objects of his preference at the moment.
There are many pictures by Fra Filippo in the
churches at Florence; two in the gallery of the
Academy there; five in the Berlin Museum ; in
the Louvre there is one undoubtedly genuine, and
of great beauty, marked by all his characteristics :
it represents the Madonna standing, and holding
the Infant Saviour in her arms; on each side are
angels and a kneeling monk. The attitude of the
Virgin is grand, the head commonplace, or worse ;
the countenance of the Infant Christ, heavy; the
angels, with crisped hair, have the faces of street
urchins; but the adoring monks are wonderful for
the natural dignity of their figures and the fine ex-
pression in their upturned faces, and the whole
picture is most admirably executed. It was painted
for the church of the Santo Spirito at Florence,