Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers (1899) (14784803775)

Identifier: greatpicturesassx00sing (find matches) Title: Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers Year: 1899 (1890s) Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930, ed. and tr Subjects: Painting Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead and Company Contributing Library: Boston Public Library Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: ar subjectswere not uncommon, the vast majority of paintings exe-cuted for patrons, whether clerical or lay, were stillreligious in subject. It is not therefore, surprising thatamong the artists of the Fifteenth Century, many of whomwere monks and all Church painters, we find a distinctcleavage dividing artists whose aim was to break awayfrom all traditions—realists — classicists—in a word, re-formers, from artists who clung tenaciously to the old ideals,and whose main aim was still the perfection of devotionalexpression. It was to the former class that Benozzo Gozzoli be-longed, pupil though he was of Fra Angelico. Althoughhis special quality may be partly discerned in the altar-piecethat hangs above his masters predella, in the strongly markedcharacter of the saints, and perhaps more in the carefullystudied goldfinches, there was little scope in such a subjectfor the exercise of his imagination or the display of hisindividuality. It is different with the little panel opposite, Text Appearing After Image: THE RAPE OF HELEN 139 The Rape of Helen (No. 591), in which he has depictedwith great liveliness and gusto a scene from a classicallegend. Possibly, to Fra Angelico, who regarded paintingonly as a means of edification, its employment on sucha subject may have seemed little less than sacrilege, notunlike the use of a chancel for the stabling of horses.Such views can scarcely be said to be extinct now, and thisis