DOI Heft:
Nr. 115 (October 1902)
DOI Artikel:Melani, Alfredo: An italian painter: Gaetano Previati
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19877#0067
Gaetano Previati
" ENFANT MUSICIEN " FROM A PASTEL BY G. PREVIATI
be called one ot the most poetic ot all Italian appeals so forcibly to heart and mind. Previati's
artists. work of this kind ranks, indeed, amongst the most
Relying as he does on the principle just defined, powerful religious art produced in modern times in
Previati has a natural predilection for religious Italy.
painting, and he has indeed devoted himself Previati, with his predilection for quiet, medi-
especially to that class of work, although it cannot tative work, has already amassed a considerable
be claimed for him that he has the religious faith number of paintings, pastels, and drawings of a
or the devotion to religious duties which would great variety; but it is strange that he has remained
appear to be essential to excellence in the treat- altogether insensible to the charms of landscape,
ment of sacred subjects. It has often been said especially in such a place as Milan, in the neigh-
that Fra Angelico touched the very highest point bourhood of which city there are so many
possible to an interpreter of religious feeling; for opportunities of studying pure landscape at its
he was himself a perfect model of chastity, faith, best. The first picture by Previati to attract notice
and love, and it is related of him that he never at a public exhibition was an historical one, the
took brush in hand without having first repeated subject being Borgia at Capua, in which the painter
his orisons, and that he never represented a has respected the claims of tradition; a fact that
crucifix without bathing his cheeks with tears. It made some of his friends regret his later departure
is very certain that Previati does nothing of the from the path on which he seemed to have entered
sort, although there is about his Madonnas and in the Borgia, and that, with the exception of the
paintings of Christ on the Cross all the charm painting Maternity, he should not have enriched
of sincerity, and of that poetic feeling which modern painting with any other works really
55
" ENFANT MUSICIEN " FROM A PASTEL BY G. PREVIATI
be called one ot the most poetic ot all Italian appeals so forcibly to heart and mind. Previati's
artists. work of this kind ranks, indeed, amongst the most
Relying as he does on the principle just defined, powerful religious art produced in modern times in
Previati has a natural predilection for religious Italy.
painting, and he has indeed devoted himself Previati, with his predilection for quiet, medi-
especially to that class of work, although it cannot tative work, has already amassed a considerable
be claimed for him that he has the religious faith number of paintings, pastels, and drawings of a
or the devotion to religious duties which would great variety; but it is strange that he has remained
appear to be essential to excellence in the treat- altogether insensible to the charms of landscape,
ment of sacred subjects. It has often been said especially in such a place as Milan, in the neigh-
that Fra Angelico touched the very highest point bourhood of which city there are so many
possible to an interpreter of religious feeling; for opportunities of studying pure landscape at its
he was himself a perfect model of chastity, faith, best. The first picture by Previati to attract notice
and love, and it is related of him that he never at a public exhibition was an historical one, the
took brush in hand without having first repeated subject being Borgia at Capua, in which the painter
his orisons, and that he never represented a has respected the claims of tradition; a fact that
crucifix without bathing his cheeks with tears. It made some of his friends regret his later departure
is very certain that Previati does nothing of the from the path on which he seemed to have entered
sort, although there is about his Madonnas and in the Borgia, and that, with the exception of the
paintings of Christ on the Cross all the charm painting Maternity, he should not have enriched
of sincerity, and of that poetic feeling which modern painting with any other works really
55