eBooks Base 2000

There is
a Crucifixion by him in this gallery, which made me partly feel as if I
were a far-off spectator,--no, I did not mean a Crucifixion, but a
picture of Christ dead, lying, with a calm, sweet face, on his mother's
knees ["a Pieta"].
The most inadequate and utterly absurd picture here, or in any other
gallery, is a head of the Eternal Father, by Carlo Dolce; it looks like a
feeble saint, on the eve of martyrdom, and very doubtful how he shall be
able to bear it; very finely and prettily painted, nevertheless.
After getting through the principal gallery we went into a smaller room,
in which are contained a great many small specimens of the old Tuscan
artists, among whom Fra Angelico makes the principal figure. These
pictures are all on wood, and seem to have been taken from the shrines
and altars of ancient churches; they are predellas and triptychs, or
pictures on three folding tablets, shaped quaintly, in Gothic peaks or
arches, and still gleaming with backgrounds of antique gold.


Pages:
473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497