DOI issue:
Vol. 6, No. 2 (April, 1916)
DOI article:Hellmann, George Sidney: Drawings by Italian artists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49980#0262
ations of the actual size or the meticulous finish in a
design. Great draughtsmen have learned that secret
of idealization which in seeking to present permanent
types of character, permanent aspects of life, employs
the method of elimination as well as of accentuation.
The greater the master the more he can accomplish in
the slightest of sketches; but his economy is based on
sure knowledge.
Very briefly thus have we considered the Italian
drawings at the Metropolitan Museum; yet our partial
adventure has carried us into the three periods into
which many critics have divided Italian art. Filippino
Lippi belongs (although less centrally than his father,
Filippo Lippi) to the Primitive period; others of the
artists were associates of Michelangelo and Raffaelle,
who represent the epoch of greatest strength; and we
have followed, not without pleasure, the work of some
of the painters of the period of decline, recognizing that
in their canvases they show more elements of “deca-
dence” than in their drawings where color and chiaro-
scuro do not avail to hide structural weakness. And,
lastly, we have in Guardi a master not unrelated to
earlier men, and yet showing kinship with many a sig-
nificant artist of our own day.
design. Great draughtsmen have learned that secret
of idealization which in seeking to present permanent
types of character, permanent aspects of life, employs
the method of elimination as well as of accentuation.
The greater the master the more he can accomplish in
the slightest of sketches; but his economy is based on
sure knowledge.
Very briefly thus have we considered the Italian
drawings at the Metropolitan Museum; yet our partial
adventure has carried us into the three periods into
which many critics have divided Italian art. Filippino
Lippi belongs (although less centrally than his father,
Filippo Lippi) to the Primitive period; others of the
artists were associates of Michelangelo and Raffaelle,
who represent the epoch of greatest strength; and we
have followed, not without pleasure, the work of some
of the painters of the period of decline, recognizing that
in their canvases they show more elements of “deca-
dence” than in their drawings where color and chiaro-
scuro do not avail to hide structural weakness. And,
lastly, we have in Guardi a master not unrelated to
earlier men, and yet showing kinship with many a sig-
nificant artist of our own day.