DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0066
EARLY PICTURES
whole pose, especially his crossed legs, his hands and his head, is
a free version of the two figures to the left of Perugino’s 4 Agony
in the Garden,’ which is now in the Academy at Florence. In
the face of this figure the argument for a pre-Peruginesque
Raphael falls to the ground, and it even becomes very doubtful
that this picture is an early work in the studio of Perugino,
executed before the influence of Timoteo Viti had worn off. It
is excessively improbable that, after attaining such power in
varying and adapting Peruginesque figures, Raphael returned to
the slavish and feeble imitation which is observable in the Mond
4 Crucifixion.’ It is not, indeed, inconceivable that this should be
the case, nor is it inconceivable that Raphael should return with
fuller power to his earlier manner in the 4 Sposalizio ’ when freed
from Perugino’s immediate presence; but, if these theories are
conceivable, a hundred other hypotheses are equally probable,
and it becomes ludicrous to fix upon any one of them and to treat
it as an established fact. Morelli’s arguments were of great value
in emphasising characteristics in Raphael’s work which are not
purely Peruginesque, and even more so in pointing out the import-
ance in his history of possible association with artists of the
second rank, but when they become, not daring paradoxes and
clever surmises, but established dogmas repeated in every cata-
logue, they are misleading and untrue.
Resemblances in the type of head and figure, and such details
of identity as the coral necklace, connect the picture of the 4 Three
Graces ’ with the 4 Vision of the Knight,’ and they, together with
the general dissimilarity with Perugino’s work which this picture
also shows, are seized upon by the historians who wish to place
this picture too at the beginning of Raphael’s career before he
was dominated by Perugino. A more curious point of detail
serves, as does the figure of the Knight in the 4 Vision,’ to bring
the picture back again into the Peruginesque circle, though it
leaves the question of the date untouched. The Grace to the
left of the picture is posed in the characteristic attitude of
44
whole pose, especially his crossed legs, his hands and his head, is
a free version of the two figures to the left of Perugino’s 4 Agony
in the Garden,’ which is now in the Academy at Florence. In
the face of this figure the argument for a pre-Peruginesque
Raphael falls to the ground, and it even becomes very doubtful
that this picture is an early work in the studio of Perugino,
executed before the influence of Timoteo Viti had worn off. It
is excessively improbable that, after attaining such power in
varying and adapting Peruginesque figures, Raphael returned to
the slavish and feeble imitation which is observable in the Mond
4 Crucifixion.’ It is not, indeed, inconceivable that this should be
the case, nor is it inconceivable that Raphael should return with
fuller power to his earlier manner in the 4 Sposalizio ’ when freed
from Perugino’s immediate presence; but, if these theories are
conceivable, a hundred other hypotheses are equally probable,
and it becomes ludicrous to fix upon any one of them and to treat
it as an established fact. Morelli’s arguments were of great value
in emphasising characteristics in Raphael’s work which are not
purely Peruginesque, and even more so in pointing out the import-
ance in his history of possible association with artists of the
second rank, but when they become, not daring paradoxes and
clever surmises, but established dogmas repeated in every cata-
logue, they are misleading and untrue.
Resemblances in the type of head and figure, and such details
of identity as the coral necklace, connect the picture of the 4 Three
Graces ’ with the 4 Vision of the Knight,’ and they, together with
the general dissimilarity with Perugino’s work which this picture
also shows, are seized upon by the historians who wish to place
this picture too at the beginning of Raphael’s career before he
was dominated by Perugino. A more curious point of detail
serves, as does the figure of the Knight in the 4 Vision,’ to bring
the picture back again into the Peruginesque circle, though it
leaves the question of the date untouched. The Grace to the
left of the picture is posed in the characteristic attitude of
44