Studio: international art (34.1905)

Two Italian Draughtsmen

DRAWING BY ALBERTO MARTINI

—at times lugubriously tnacabre, at others grandly epic—
which illuminates the toiling sons of the soil and the
solemn processes of nature, and reveals in its possessor a
cultured mind, which, though often carried away by
poetical visions, knows how to preserve its balance by
philosophical and sociological reflection, without, however,
yielding to that turbid political exaltation which has
nothing to do with art.

I will but briefly mention four rather weird allegories,
somewhat rhetorically pompous in their contrast of Christ
and Satan, exhibited in 1902 at Monaco ; some charming
book-plates ; and some head-pieces, tail-pieces and plates
for the illustration of Dante's Inferno, which, though
evincing originality of invention and of decorative con-
struction, are not above criticism and bear signs of
immaturity. But I must speak more at length of the
designs for the comic poem of The Stolen Bucket,
wherein Alberto Martini was able to display to advan-
tage all the resources of his glowing imagination and
clever draughtsmanship. The work of illustrating this
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poem was grateful to him, and its gay
satire chimed in wonderfully with certain
aptitudes of Martini's mind, where, side
by side with its tragic and sinister visions,
there is a spontaneous vein of humour
which had full scope in his very free
pictorial commentary upon the comic
heroics of Alessandro Tassoni, the coarse
and indecent element in the text being
entirely ignored by him. In pursuance
of this task Martini succeeded in freeing
himself to a great extent from German
influence and becoming definitely Latin
in grace and agility.

It was in 1895, when Martini had
scarcely completed his nineteenth year,
that he began illustrating The Stolen
Bucket, leaving it from time to time
for other work and taking it up again

DRAWING BY ALBERTO MARTINI