DOI Heft:
No. 104 (November, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Anderton, Isabella Mary: The art of Domenico Morelli
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19874#0096
Domenico Morelli
studio, to a second painter (Morelli himself) more
imaginative than reflective, and from the fusion of
the two issued the beginning of a school which,
little by little, attracted the men of greatest promise,
and was recognised first by us Neapolitans, and,
after the Exhibition at Florence, by artists from
other parts of Italy. Thus was begun a reform
which combated the academic conventionalism so
antagonistic to the scrupulous search after absolute
truth."
- Morelli speaks of himself as "more imaginative
than reflective." He looked upon Palizzi's re-
searches, his studies of animals and trees, not as
an end in themselves, but as a means to an end—
as materials from which to compose the organic
work of art, warm with the imaginative life of the
conceiver. "We fought the Academy," he says,
"because we wished to fight mediocrity in art;
and it is a mistake to think that every painting
executed with taste, and with truth of light and
colour, is art, and has sprung from this reform.
Middling talents think this, and fill the exhibitions
with studies which few understand and in which
no one takes interest. The search after truth in
execution has led cultured intellects to penetrate
their conceptions more deeply, to present truly
the idea they have imagined or the situation 0f a
historical fact or legend."
The first important work in which the young
painter embodied his artistic tenets and his
patriotic aspirations was the well-known Iconoclasts.
Fra Lazaro, the unfortunate artist, stood in the
painter's mind for one of the patriots; the brute
who tramples on the picture, for an Austrian
emissary. The King seems to have divined the
secret, for he remarked that there was "a thought
in that picture." But his attention was called off
elsewhere, his words were not understood by those
about him, and Morelli escaped the danger.
Although a historical picture, the Iconoclasts, like
Ussi's Expulsion of the Duke of Athens, differs from
the Academic work of that time in that the figures
are studied from the living model, and a vigorous
effort has been made to render the movement
free, natural and expressive of the passions to
be presented.
" CHRIST MOCKED '
84
DOMENICO MOREL
studio, to a second painter (Morelli himself) more
imaginative than reflective, and from the fusion of
the two issued the beginning of a school which,
little by little, attracted the men of greatest promise,
and was recognised first by us Neapolitans, and,
after the Exhibition at Florence, by artists from
other parts of Italy. Thus was begun a reform
which combated the academic conventionalism so
antagonistic to the scrupulous search after absolute
truth."
- Morelli speaks of himself as "more imaginative
than reflective." He looked upon Palizzi's re-
searches, his studies of animals and trees, not as
an end in themselves, but as a means to an end—
as materials from which to compose the organic
work of art, warm with the imaginative life of the
conceiver. "We fought the Academy," he says,
"because we wished to fight mediocrity in art;
and it is a mistake to think that every painting
executed with taste, and with truth of light and
colour, is art, and has sprung from this reform.
Middling talents think this, and fill the exhibitions
with studies which few understand and in which
no one takes interest. The search after truth in
execution has led cultured intellects to penetrate
their conceptions more deeply, to present truly
the idea they have imagined or the situation 0f a
historical fact or legend."
The first important work in which the young
painter embodied his artistic tenets and his
patriotic aspirations was the well-known Iconoclasts.
Fra Lazaro, the unfortunate artist, stood in the
painter's mind for one of the patriots; the brute
who tramples on the picture, for an Austrian
emissary. The King seems to have divined the
secret, for he remarked that there was "a thought
in that picture." But his attention was called off
elsewhere, his words were not understood by those
about him, and Morelli escaped the danger.
Although a historical picture, the Iconoclasts, like
Ussi's Expulsion of the Duke of Athens, differs from
the Academic work of that time in that the figures
are studied from the living model, and a vigorous
effort has been made to render the movement
free, natural and expressive of the passions to
be presented.
" CHRIST MOCKED '
84
DOMENICO MOREL