DOI issue:
Nr. 144 (March 1905)
DOI article:Pica, Vittorio: Two italian draughtsmen: Alfredo Baruffi and Alberto Martini
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20711#0156
Two Italian Draughtsmen
nature in Indian-ink brush work, which show that
Baruffi, lover of legends and allegories as he is,
to whom reality serves in general merely as a point
of departure for his imaginative excursions, can on
occasion reproduce nature with conscientious
fidelity.
My own personal preference, I confess, is for
his illustrations of Dante's Vita JVuova, and of
Tasso's Aminta, in which the figures accord
well with the landscapes, imagination reconciles
itself with reality, lights and shadows blend
harmoniously together, and the whole presents a
delightfully decorative effect. Allied to these last
in delicacy and grace of execution are various
symbolical and legendary compositions, in which
Baruffi has had freer scope for his poetical and
imaginative sense.
Now that Baruffi has attained such a high degree
of excellence in the ornamentation of books, it is
to be hoped that he will not be diverted from the
right path into other less suitable fields, such for
instance as that of caricature, or of poster, in which
he can never be anything but mediocre.
DRAWING BY A. BARUFFI
Alberto Martini has exhibited on various
occasions, in black-and-white exhibitions, both at
home and abroad, a large collection of interest-
ing pen-and-ink designs, remarkable for imaginative
subtlety of conception, for capable execution, and
above all, for decorative grace both in the mass
and in detail, showing a rare aptitude for adorning
the printed page.
140
Born at Oderzo, near Treviso, eight-and-twenty
years ago, Martini was fortunate enough to have as
his first and most efficient master his father, a well-
known portrait-painter. The latter, mingling praise
and encouragement with correction and advice,
guided the boy's first efforts so judiciously, that
drawing was to the quick-witted child what gather-
ing flowers or chasing butterflies is to ordinary
children ; and, thanks to this long practice, his
execution has become—what is above all things
DRAWING BY A. BARUFFI
valuable when applied to design—free and sure,
even almost- too facile, and characterised also by a
fresh and vivid gaiety of mind.
His imaginative tendency and love of minute
analysis predisposed Martini to feel profoundly the
influence of Albert Diirer and the other great
masters of Germany, whose work was early brought
to his notice in the museums and collections of
engravings possessed by the Venetian town. They
were to him a revelation amounting to an aesthetic
inoculation, which, if on the one hand it impeded
the more rapid and decided 'development of
Martini's individual originality, keeping him for
many years a follower of Joseph Sattler, yet
on the other hand served to strengthen his natural
gifts of observation and fidelity to truth, rendering
all his designs delightful to the eye which notes
the minutiae that go to make up a really har-
monious whole.
The first series of fourteen drawings, under the
title of The Court of Miracles, exhibited by Martini
nature in Indian-ink brush work, which show that
Baruffi, lover of legends and allegories as he is,
to whom reality serves in general merely as a point
of departure for his imaginative excursions, can on
occasion reproduce nature with conscientious
fidelity.
My own personal preference, I confess, is for
his illustrations of Dante's Vita JVuova, and of
Tasso's Aminta, in which the figures accord
well with the landscapes, imagination reconciles
itself with reality, lights and shadows blend
harmoniously together, and the whole presents a
delightfully decorative effect. Allied to these last
in delicacy and grace of execution are various
symbolical and legendary compositions, in which
Baruffi has had freer scope for his poetical and
imaginative sense.
Now that Baruffi has attained such a high degree
of excellence in the ornamentation of books, it is
to be hoped that he will not be diverted from the
right path into other less suitable fields, such for
instance as that of caricature, or of poster, in which
he can never be anything but mediocre.
DRAWING BY A. BARUFFI
Alberto Martini has exhibited on various
occasions, in black-and-white exhibitions, both at
home and abroad, a large collection of interest-
ing pen-and-ink designs, remarkable for imaginative
subtlety of conception, for capable execution, and
above all, for decorative grace both in the mass
and in detail, showing a rare aptitude for adorning
the printed page.
140
Born at Oderzo, near Treviso, eight-and-twenty
years ago, Martini was fortunate enough to have as
his first and most efficient master his father, a well-
known portrait-painter. The latter, mingling praise
and encouragement with correction and advice,
guided the boy's first efforts so judiciously, that
drawing was to the quick-witted child what gather-
ing flowers or chasing butterflies is to ordinary
children ; and, thanks to this long practice, his
execution has become—what is above all things
DRAWING BY A. BARUFFI
valuable when applied to design—free and sure,
even almost- too facile, and characterised also by a
fresh and vivid gaiety of mind.
His imaginative tendency and love of minute
analysis predisposed Martini to feel profoundly the
influence of Albert Diirer and the other great
masters of Germany, whose work was early brought
to his notice in the museums and collections of
engravings possessed by the Venetian town. They
were to him a revelation amounting to an aesthetic
inoculation, which, if on the one hand it impeded
the more rapid and decided 'development of
Martini's individual originality, keeping him for
many years a follower of Joseph Sattler, yet
on the other hand served to strengthen his natural
gifts of observation and fidelity to truth, rendering
all his designs delightful to the eye which notes
the minutiae that go to make up a really har-
monious whole.
The first series of fourteen drawings, under the
title of The Court of Miracles, exhibited by Martini