Venetian Painting In America - The Fifteenth Century - Pasta blanda

VENETIAN PAINTING IN AMERICA -. 4 BELLINI MADONNA F THE LATH UR. TKEODQKE M, PREFACE Now that we are on the subject of Venetian Paint ing, that would be a more exact title for this book. For, in fact, I have made the stray pictures in our col lections the pretext for saying what I wanted to say about their authors in general. In some ways this form suits me as it suited my master, Giovanni Morelli. Like him, I have a dis taste for including in my own writing questions that do not vividly interest me at the moment, no matter how important in themselves and like him, I prefer to avoid such systematic treatment as entails dealing with ma terials either at second hand, or out of dimmed and at tenuated recollection. It goes against the grain to write about anything that does not fascinate and absorb me. For the last few years it has been the painters of Venice, and Giovanni Bellini in particular, that have preoccupied my leisure and occupied my working hours. I thought of makiftg a book about him, and I may still do it. But should I fail to achieve this pur pose the student will be able to gather from this book, supplemented by certain essays in my third series of Study and Criticism of Italian Art, most of what I have to contribute to the subject. He will see what works I would ascribe to the great artist, in what chron ological order I would arrange them, how I would reconstruct the whole of the masters career, and how I would relate him to his contemporaries. These contemporaries as well are treated in this vol ume nearly as exhaustively as suits my own researches and reflections. I have however to some extent been guided by the abundance or the scarcity of the materials, and am happythat these permitted me to say so much about Montagna, so much more still about Cima, and as much as I have said about Basaiti and Catana. Of the minor painters, and of such momentarily over appreciated ones as Lazzaro Sebastian or Jacopo di Barbari I have spoken only when works of theirs in America demanded it. Most of them, however, are represented. I venture therefore to trust that this book will not be mistaken for a sort of catalogue of Venetian pictures in America. It is intended to be much more than that I hope to follow it with another volume on the Six teenth Century Venetians. My thanks are due to private owners and to public institutions for photographs and the permission to re produce them, B. B. Settignano, July, 1916. Reproductions of nearly all the pictures referred to in this book will be found in a work that should be in every students hand A. Ventures Storia deir Arte Italiana, Vol. VII, part IV, VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface v List of Illustrations xi CHAPTER I PAGE THE TRANSITION i I Caterino and Others 2 II Giovanni and Antonio da Murano - 5 III Antonio Vivarinis Studio 9 IV Bartolommeo Vivarini 13 V Crivellis Madonnas 18 VI Crivelli Pietas 22 VII Victor Crivelli 24 VIII Jacopo Bellini 25 CHAPTER II ANTONELLO DA MESSINA AND His IMITATORS 28 I Johnson and Altman Portraits 29 II Mr. Pricks Pieta not by Antonello 31 III Mr. Walters Female Head 35 IV Antonio de Saliba Mr. Winthrops Madonna ... 38 V Mr. Theodore M. Davis Madonna 42 VI Mr. Platts South Italian Madonna 43 VII Antonio Solario 45 VIII Filippo Mazzola 49 IX Cristoforo da Parma 52 X Antonio da Serravalle 53 vii CHAPTER III PAGE GIOVANNI BELLINI 54 I Mantegna Mrs. Gardners Sacra Conversazione . . 54 II TheAltman Holy Family 58 III Giovanni Bellini New Theory of His Development . 60 IV The Davis Madonna . ., 63 V The Johnson Madonna 65 VI The Lehman Madonna 7 1 VII The Platt Madonna 74 VIII The Winthrop Madonna 78 IX The Huntington Madonna 81 X The Madonna of the Metropolitan Museum ... 84 XI The Salomon Madonna 89 XII The Willys Madonna 92 XIII Mr. Pricks St...