DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62783#0166
98
FRESCO PAINTING.
with a salary of ten scudi corti of that coinage per month, and his
board, and appointed him his painter.”—Malvasia. Felsina Pittrice,
vol. I. p. 340, 341.
But if such instances are rare, it is still rarer to find painters who
painted the pictures first and drew the cartoons afterwards, yet that
this was the case we find from the following anecdote of Lorenzo
Garbieri.
“ He, (Lorenzo Garbieri) was of a rather warm temperament, and
sometimes too much so, and was therefore quick in invention, and
quicker still in execution ; he had not the patience to make sketches
or designs which are extremely rare, by his hand; but when he was
obliged to make some for any one, whom he could not refuse, he
generally copied them from the picture, which he had previously
painted and finished, and these he shaded and finished highly, laying
gold and silver on the lights, in the same manner as those which he
sent to Rome, as a present to his friend the Cardinal Giustiniani, as
he had already done with those which he had painted in the Capella
di S. Carlo, Bologna, in order to gain the Cardinal’s friendship. He
therefore desired with great, though reasonable earnestness, however
distant the opportunity might seem, to execute some immense
painting in fresco, in which he could, for once, (as he used to say)
gratify his whims and his caprice, certain, however, that, being ren-
dered more patient by his age, and more cautious by experience, he
should not fall into that immoderate fury, which is seen and ad-
mired, in his Prophets and Sybils, in the first ceiling of the Capella
della Morte, owing to the figures being drawn off hand, (as they call
it), on the picture itself without cartoons, though it is otherwise
very well designed, and with freedom, and wonderful colouring; his
usual severity being softened down by the wet lime, which he was
obliged to use instead of priming, and the vehicle being water, in-
stead of the colours being mixed with oil.”—Malv. Pels. Pitt. vol.
II. p. 305.
OF THE PAINTING.
The following extracts relate to Painting. The first extract,
referring to Giotto’s method of painting flesh in fresco, should be
compared with Cennino’s account of the process. The passage
FRESCO PAINTING.
with a salary of ten scudi corti of that coinage per month, and his
board, and appointed him his painter.”—Malvasia. Felsina Pittrice,
vol. I. p. 340, 341.
But if such instances are rare, it is still rarer to find painters who
painted the pictures first and drew the cartoons afterwards, yet that
this was the case we find from the following anecdote of Lorenzo
Garbieri.
“ He, (Lorenzo Garbieri) was of a rather warm temperament, and
sometimes too much so, and was therefore quick in invention, and
quicker still in execution ; he had not the patience to make sketches
or designs which are extremely rare, by his hand; but when he was
obliged to make some for any one, whom he could not refuse, he
generally copied them from the picture, which he had previously
painted and finished, and these he shaded and finished highly, laying
gold and silver on the lights, in the same manner as those which he
sent to Rome, as a present to his friend the Cardinal Giustiniani, as
he had already done with those which he had painted in the Capella
di S. Carlo, Bologna, in order to gain the Cardinal’s friendship. He
therefore desired with great, though reasonable earnestness, however
distant the opportunity might seem, to execute some immense
painting in fresco, in which he could, for once, (as he used to say)
gratify his whims and his caprice, certain, however, that, being ren-
dered more patient by his age, and more cautious by experience, he
should not fall into that immoderate fury, which is seen and ad-
mired, in his Prophets and Sybils, in the first ceiling of the Capella
della Morte, owing to the figures being drawn off hand, (as they call
it), on the picture itself without cartoons, though it is otherwise
very well designed, and with freedom, and wonderful colouring; his
usual severity being softened down by the wet lime, which he was
obliged to use instead of priming, and the vehicle being water, in-
stead of the colours being mixed with oil.”—Malv. Pels. Pitt. vol.
II. p. 305.
OF THE PAINTING.
The following extracts relate to Painting. The first extract,
referring to Giotto’s method of painting flesh in fresco, should be
compared with Cennino’s account of the process. The passage