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#0099
Domenico Morelli
Other pictures illustrative of this period of And in this Morelli differs substantially from his
Morelli's art and inspiration are Count Lara and friend Ussi, for whom deserts and inhabitants
his Page, Tasso Reading his Poem to the Three formed almost an organic whole. A comparison
Eleonoras, the Vespri Siciliani, the Bath at of Ussi's Arab Encampment with Morelli's Christ
Pompeii. They are pictures which show the care- Tempted in the Wilderness, or of the two pictures
ful union of the realistic and academic method ; entitled Prayer in the Desert, the same subject so
and, however admirable, strike one, especially in differently conceived and executed by the two
view of the painter's later art, as cold and lacking men, at once reveals, in most interesting fashion,
in spontaneity. Morelli was by this time Professor the fundamental distinction between their charac-
in the Academy of Naples and very much under teristics as artists,
the influence of Palizzi,
who had been named
Director : he was working,
more reflectively than
imaginatively, to close the
breach between the Realists
and the Academy.
But new wine will not
be confined in old bottles.
The fire that burned be-
hind the glowing black
eyes that look so straight
from the artist's likeness of
himself, painted for his
brother-in-law and fellow-
patriot, Senator Villari,
leapt the bounds of the
rigid containing outline
which to Palizzi was a sine
qua non of art, and itself
fashioned the figments of
the poet's imagination in
glowing colours and lumin-
ous shadows. There is
something truly magnifi-
cent in the way in which
Morelli flings his very soul
on to the canvas when he
is inspired by subjects from
the life of Christ or, as in the
Temptation of St. Anthony,
by the fanaticism of early
Christianity. The broad
silences of the desert or
°f the sea live with their
own life> and yet are
dominated by the power
that emanates from the
single figure of the Christ
°r by the tragic interest
that breathes from the
small group, or groups,
contained in the immen-
Slt^- "ARAB IMPROVISER " BY DOMENICO MORELLI
87
»•
Other pictures illustrative of this period of And in this Morelli differs substantially from his
Morelli's art and inspiration are Count Lara and friend Ussi, for whom deserts and inhabitants
his Page, Tasso Reading his Poem to the Three formed almost an organic whole. A comparison
Eleonoras, the Vespri Siciliani, the Bath at of Ussi's Arab Encampment with Morelli's Christ
Pompeii. They are pictures which show the care- Tempted in the Wilderness, or of the two pictures
ful union of the realistic and academic method ; entitled Prayer in the Desert, the same subject so
and, however admirable, strike one, especially in differently conceived and executed by the two
view of the painter's later art, as cold and lacking men, at once reveals, in most interesting fashion,
in spontaneity. Morelli was by this time Professor the fundamental distinction between their charac-
in the Academy of Naples and very much under teristics as artists,
the influence of Palizzi,
who had been named
Director : he was working,
more reflectively than
imaginatively, to close the
breach between the Realists
and the Academy.
But new wine will not
be confined in old bottles.
The fire that burned be-
hind the glowing black
eyes that look so straight
from the artist's likeness of
himself, painted for his
brother-in-law and fellow-
patriot, Senator Villari,
leapt the bounds of the
rigid containing outline
which to Palizzi was a sine
qua non of art, and itself
fashioned the figments of
the poet's imagination in
glowing colours and lumin-
ous shadows. There is
something truly magnifi-
cent in the way in which
Morelli flings his very soul
on to the canvas when he
is inspired by subjects from
the life of Christ or, as in the
Temptation of St. Anthony,
by the fanaticism of early
Christianity. The broad
silences of the desert or
°f the sea live with their
own life> and yet are
dominated by the power
that emanates from the
single figure of the Christ
°r by the tragic interest
that breathes from the
small group, or groups,
contained in the immen-
Slt^- "ARAB IMPROVISER " BY DOMENICO MORELLI
87
»•