Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

and far-off hills; or the scenery of Memlinc's1 11430-1495. "Reliquary of St. Ursula" or Durer's' quaint 21471-1528. and symbolic version of the country in which the "Knight on Horseback" is placed. Very fine also are the backgrounds painted by Perugino and Pinturicchio (see Plate 3) and the somewhat sad landscapes of Raphael, with $1483-1520. their beautiful drawing of grass, flower, and

tree in every detail. (See Plate 4.)

3

But it is the Venetian school that makes

the nearest approach to modern ideas. The

71519-1594.

little vistas of country in Bellini's work are 41426-1516. beautiful, and Giorgione painted a lovely $1476–1511. piece of nature, in which the "Sleeping Venus" reposes, in his picture in the Dresden gallery. Titian and Tintoretto' continue the work of 1477-1576. Giorgione, and reach the highest point, up to their time, in depicting nature. Titian's early life was passed in the Cadore country, and he never forgot the scenery amid which he was brought up, with its rapid rivers and torrents, its castles and crags, its spectral mountains, with ridges rising above the clouds and mist. This rugged pass in the Alps was the road taken by Roman armies and bar

barian tribes to descend into Italy, and its wild grandeur inspired Titian with an intense love. It was in this place, at the village of Valle, that the battle of Cadore was fought, and this is the scene described in his great picture of that battle, though like Turner and other artists he took some liberty with the mountains, and the bridge over the river Boita, to suit his picture. He also painted some fine landscapes in the "Adoration of the Magi," and the "Supper at Emmaus," and there is in the Pitti Palace, Florence, a drawing, without any figures in it, of a scene in the Cadore country. A wood of great trees is shown on the left, reminding one of Rousseau's oaks on the edge of a forest, and to the right there is seen open country with mountains in the distance, a very modern composition for that day. (See Plate 5.)

Tintoretto also has a remarkable piece of landscape work in the "Gathering of the Manna," and in the tree trunks and foliage of the "Crucifixion," and also in the trees and sky of the "Flight into Egypt."

In the following very beautiful passage,

[graphic]

PLATE V. Scene in the Cadore Country. Titian.

« AnteriorContinuar »