DOI Artikel:
Melani, Alfredo: Tranquillo Cremona - painter
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0067
Tranquillo Cremona
STUDY BY TRANQUILLO CREMONA
that of " bohemianism," and Grandi would speak
of his simple and bohemian life, for Cremona's
later style was not such as was likely to result in
wealth. And, indeed, wealth is not prized by revo-
lutionaries ; the master, deserting the beaten tracks,
knew that he was not painting for the public, who,
believing in the Academy and its adherents, did
not believe in the master's merits.
This has always been the fate of innovators ; of
Wagner and Berlioz in music, of Delacroix and
Manet in painting, who were the butt of academic
coteries. Cremona, if he were still alive, might say,
like Delacroix: " For twenty years have I fought
with the beasts !" And to this day the public and
some survivors of the academic tribe do not under-
stand his aims and work. It is only within a very
few years that a sufficient sum could be collected to
raise a monument quite unworthy of his memory,
though marking some little improvement in the
public taste and feeling. But in the mind of artists,
at any rate, Cremona has entered into glory.
Though scorned during his lifetime, and for long
5°
after, by all but a few young spirits who bore him
to the skies, he has at last made an impression
on the Lombardy School; indeed, he is its true
creator. His pictures were eagerly studied, and
his bold innovations captivated young painters,
who, it must be owned, sometimes imitated rather
than understood him ; but as time went on
intelligent sympathy took the place of mere imita-
tion, and artists derived great benefit from the
study ot their leader in Lombardy. Cremona
himself always impressed on young painters that
style does not consist in the application of prin-
ciples, whether learnt in the schools or from the
study of any great master, but in the free, indi-
vidual expression of a man's peisonal artistic
feeling; and his own art was a continual illustra-
tion of this axiom, which is worth many an essay
on jesthetics. Alfredo Melani.
" THE ANNUNCIATION" BY SIGRID BLOMBERG
STUDY BY TRANQUILLO CREMONA
that of " bohemianism," and Grandi would speak
of his simple and bohemian life, for Cremona's
later style was not such as was likely to result in
wealth. And, indeed, wealth is not prized by revo-
lutionaries ; the master, deserting the beaten tracks,
knew that he was not painting for the public, who,
believing in the Academy and its adherents, did
not believe in the master's merits.
This has always been the fate of innovators ; of
Wagner and Berlioz in music, of Delacroix and
Manet in painting, who were the butt of academic
coteries. Cremona, if he were still alive, might say,
like Delacroix: " For twenty years have I fought
with the beasts !" And to this day the public and
some survivors of the academic tribe do not under-
stand his aims and work. It is only within a very
few years that a sufficient sum could be collected to
raise a monument quite unworthy of his memory,
though marking some little improvement in the
public taste and feeling. But in the mind of artists,
at any rate, Cremona has entered into glory.
Though scorned during his lifetime, and for long
5°
after, by all but a few young spirits who bore him
to the skies, he has at last made an impression
on the Lombardy School; indeed, he is its true
creator. His pictures were eagerly studied, and
his bold innovations captivated young painters,
who, it must be owned, sometimes imitated rather
than understood him ; but as time went on
intelligent sympathy took the place of mere imita-
tion, and artists derived great benefit from the
study ot their leader in Lombardy. Cremona
himself always impressed on young painters that
style does not consist in the application of prin-
ciples, whether learnt in the schools or from the
study of any great master, but in the free, indi-
vidual expression of a man's peisonal artistic
feeling; and his own art was a continual illustra-
tion of this axiom, which is worth many an essay
on jesthetics. Alfredo Melani.
" THE ANNUNCIATION" BY SIGRID BLOMBERG