United States or Seychelles ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I have here two photographs," and he unfolded and passed one to Margery, who was close beside him, "which I wish you to look at carefully. They are of works painted very soon after the Coronation; one, the Marriage of the Virgin, or Lo Sposalizio, is in the Brera Gallery at Milan. It is as like Perugino's work as is the Coronation."
A vague suspicion began to cross Herminia's mind, as she gazed at the girlish Madonna of the Sposalizio, that perhaps she wasn't quite as well adapted to love Italy as Switzerland. Nature she understood; was art yet a closed book to her?
But in this subject, Raphael, while yet a youth, excelled his master and all who had gone before him. Every one knows the famous "SPOSALIZIO of the Brera." It was painted by Raphael in his twenty-first year, for the church of S. Francesco, in Citt
It was customary to have very long troops of kindred and friends at the sposalizio, or betrothal, and it had even been found necessary in time past to limit the number by law to no more than four hundred two hundred on each side; for since the guests were all feasted after this initial ceremony, as well as after the nozze, or marriage, the very first stage of matrimony had become a ruinous expense, as that scholarly Benedict, Leonardo Bruno, complained in his own case.
If criticism before such admirable examples of so excellent a master be permissible, it may be questioned whether the figures are not too crowded, whether the groups are sufficiently varied and connected by rhythmic lines. Yet the concords of yellow and orange with blue in the 'Sposalizio, and the blendings of dull violet and red in the 'Disputa, make up for much of stiffness.
The pictures in the chapels, chiefly by Luini and Ferrari an idyllic Nativity, with faun-like shepherds and choirs of angels a sumptuous adoration of the Magi a jewelled Sposalizio with abundance of golden hair flowing over draperies of green and crimson will interest those who are as yet unfamiliar with Lombard painting. Yet their architectural setting, perhaps, is superior to their intrinsic merit as works of art; and their chief value consists in adding rare dim flakes of colour to the cool light of the lovely church. More curious, because less easily matched, is the gilded woodwork above the altar of S. Abondio, attributed to a German carver, but executed for the most part in the purest Luinesque manner. The pose of the enthroned Madonna, the type and gesture of S. Catherine, and the treatment of the Piet
And always, in looking, I have thought of the "Sposalizio" of Raphael in the Brera at Milan, of the tiny dream of blue country framed by the temple doorway beyond the Virgin and Saint Joseph. The doorways of the temples of Egypt are very noble, and nowhere have I been more struck by their nobility than in Medinet-Abu.
Her father and mother and groups of spectators fill the foreground; here, too, is a very noble female figure on the right; but the whole composition is mannered, and wants repose and religious feeling. The Sposalizio, by Beccafumi. The ceremony takes place after the manner of the Jews, outside the Temple. In a mannered, artificial style.
"Nay, he could not fail his Venice for a festa that doth him such honor; Messer San Marco è galant uomo! But how then, Tonio, thou hast a sposalizio of thine own with thy string of coral and thy fazzoletto fit for a Signorina: the bells will be chiming for thee to-morrow?" "Basta, basta!"
Here, as in the Chapel of St. Catherine at Milan, we feel that Luini was the greatest colourist among frescanti. In the "Sposalizio" the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's special grace and abundance of golden hair. In the "Disputa" the gravity and dignity of old men are above all things striking.
Word Of The Day