DOI Artikel:
Melani, Alfredo: Tranquillo Cremona - painter
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0066
Tranqtiillo Cremona
Cremona reached heights which might seem
inaccessible. Consider The Smile, a masterpiece
of truthfulness, noble and bewitching.. I say noble,
for the character of the head is dignified and the
expression intense, giving us an impression stronger
even than the reality would. Everything smiles in
the picture—not only the lips and eyes ; and this
is noble in art, a nobleness achieved only by
privileged spirits. Although at first the technique
may seem over-elaborate, it is not so ; the handling
is spontaneous, and spontaneity is always simple.
Thus in The Smile we have a most characteristic
example of Cremona's art.
It will be noticed from the accompanying illus-
trations that a strong sense of the beauty of youth
pervades Cremona's pictures; children and girls;
in an atmosphere of grace and love. This is true ;
but nothing can be further from his art than the
sensual passion which Tolstoi' has cursed from his
pontifical seat. Cremona is always chaste, and
inmses into his domestic scenes the poetry that
we find in the religious and narrative works of
Botticelli in his day, and of Burne-Jones in our
own.
Cremona, however, did not restrict his subjects
to studies of youth ; we find in his works many
figures of older persons. In his series of portraits,
for instance, that of E. Marozzi, an old Milanese
gentleman, is one of the finest. The painter has
represented him standing with a newspaper in his
hand, as if he had been suddenly addressed ; and
the half-alert, half-absorbed look is rendered with
striking vitality. Another no less life-like, is that of
Vittore Grubicy, a painter and writer on art, who,
with his brother Alberto, was one of the first to
admire Cremona's work, and did much to make it
more widely known. Cremona attempted every
style excepting landscape, and also painted in
water-colour, a technique which is little cultivated
in Italy.
I did not know Cremona personally, not having
come to Milan till after his death in 1878 ; I knew
Grandi, his intimate friend, and vve often talked of
the painter. The time when Cremona lived was
» 49
Cremona reached heights which might seem
inaccessible. Consider The Smile, a masterpiece
of truthfulness, noble and bewitching.. I say noble,
for the character of the head is dignified and the
expression intense, giving us an impression stronger
even than the reality would. Everything smiles in
the picture—not only the lips and eyes ; and this
is noble in art, a nobleness achieved only by
privileged spirits. Although at first the technique
may seem over-elaborate, it is not so ; the handling
is spontaneous, and spontaneity is always simple.
Thus in The Smile we have a most characteristic
example of Cremona's art.
It will be noticed from the accompanying illus-
trations that a strong sense of the beauty of youth
pervades Cremona's pictures; children and girls;
in an atmosphere of grace and love. This is true ;
but nothing can be further from his art than the
sensual passion which Tolstoi' has cursed from his
pontifical seat. Cremona is always chaste, and
inmses into his domestic scenes the poetry that
we find in the religious and narrative works of
Botticelli in his day, and of Burne-Jones in our
own.
Cremona, however, did not restrict his subjects
to studies of youth ; we find in his works many
figures of older persons. In his series of portraits,
for instance, that of E. Marozzi, an old Milanese
gentleman, is one of the finest. The painter has
represented him standing with a newspaper in his
hand, as if he had been suddenly addressed ; and
the half-alert, half-absorbed look is rendered with
striking vitality. Another no less life-like, is that of
Vittore Grubicy, a painter and writer on art, who,
with his brother Alberto, was one of the first to
admire Cremona's work, and did much to make it
more widely known. Cremona attempted every
style excepting landscape, and also painted in
water-colour, a technique which is little cultivated
in Italy.
I did not know Cremona personally, not having
come to Milan till after his death in 1878 ; I knew
Grandi, his intimate friend, and vve often talked of
the painter. The time when Cremona lived was
» 49