The History of Painting in Italy. Luigi Lanzi
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Название: The History of Painting in Italy

Автор: Luigi Lanzi

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066390006

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СКАЧАТЬ has been preserved by P. Wadingo in his annals of the Franciscan order for that year, and the historian describes the crucifixion as affabre pictum. The fresco works of Giunta were executed in the great church of the Franciscans, and according to Vasari he was there assisted by certain Greeks. Some busts and history pieces still remain in the gallery and the contiguous chapels, among which is the crucifixion of San Pietro, noticed in the Etruria Pittrice. Some believe that those paintings have been here and there injudiciously retouched, and this may serve to excuse the drawing, which may have been altered in many places, but the feebleness of the colouring cannot be denied. When they are compared with what Cimabue executed there about forty years afterwards, it seems that Giunta was not sufficiently forcible in this species of painting; perhaps he might have improved, but he is not mentioned after 1235; and it is conjectured that he died while yet a young man, at a distance from his native country. I am induced to believe so from observing, that Giunta di Giuntino is noticed in the records of Pisa, in the early part of that century, but not afterwards; and that Cimabue was sent for to paint the altar-piece and portrait of San Francesco of Pisa, about the year 1265, before he went to Assisi. It is more likely that Giunta would have executed this, had he returned home from that city, where he had seen and perhaps painted the portrait of the Holy Father.[40]

      Having inserted these notices of ancient painters, and some others, which will be found scattered throughout the work, I turn to Vasari, and to the accusations laid to his charge. He is defended by Monsignor Bottari in a note at the conclusion of the life of Margaritone, taken from Baldinucci. He affirms, from his own observation, "That though each city had some painters, they were all as contemptible and barbarous as Margaritone, who, if compared to Cimabue, is unworthy of the name of painter." The examples already cited do not permit me to assent to this proposition; even Bottari himself will scarcely allow me to do so, as he observes, in another note on the life of Cimabue, "That he was the first who abandoned the manner of the Greeks, or at least who avoided it more completely than any other artist." But if others, such as Guido, Bonaventura, and Giunta, had freed themselves from it before his time, why are they not recorded as the first, in point of time, by Vasari? Did not their example open the new path to Cimabue? Did they not afford a ray of light to reviving art? Were they not in painting what the two Guidos were in poetry, who, however much surpassed by Dante, are entitled to the first place in a history of our poets? Vasari would therefore have acted better had he followed the example of Pliny, who commences with the rude designers, Ardices of Corinth, and Telephanes of Sicyon; he then minutely narrates the invention of Cleophantes the Corinthian, who coloured his designs with burnt earth; next, that of Eumarus the Athenian, who first represented the distinction of age and sex. Then comes that of Cimon of Cleonæ, who first expressed the various attitudes of the head, and aimed at representing the truth, even in the joints of the fingers and the folds of the garments. Thus, the merits of each city, and every artist, appear in ancient history; and it seems to me just, that the same should be done, as far as possible, in modern history. These observations may, at present, suffice in regard to a subject that has been made a source of complaint and dispute among many writers.