Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/145

 114 OGGIONE—ORCAGNA, Certosa of Favia, and having been executed by a distinguished scholar of Leonardo, when the original was in its perfect state, now that the original has perished, it is a work of great value. The Berlin Gallery possesses the Vir- gin and Child, with Saints, by Oggione : and, in the Louvre, is a Holy Family by him. (Bossi.) ORCAGNA, or L'ARCAGNUOLO, the name by which Andbea di Gione is commonly known, 6. about 1315, d. about 1376. Painter, sculptor, and architect; he ranks among the most distinguished of the old Florentine artists. Andrea first studied with his father, who was a distinguished sculp- tor and goldsmith ; he then became the scholar of Andrea Pisano. Andrea and his brother Bernardo were much engaged at Pisa. Andrea's frescoes in the Gampo Santo are among the first productions of their age. The Triumph of Death, and the Last Judgment, are by Andrea, and the Hell by Bernardo. He painted similar subjects in the Strozzi Ghapel, in Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, in 1357 ; here, too, Ber- nardo assisted. These compositions are a species of painted epic, fall of spirited incidents, but not superior to the art of their time; in individual figures the merit is great, the forms are solemn and dignified, and the va- rious emotions efibctively expressed. The central group of Angels in the Last Judgment exhibits something sublime in character and attitude. But the grouping and composition gene- rally are treated altogether irrespec- tively of the effect of a whole; the composition wants unity, and though the individual actions show much energy and a right conception of the action or motive, they express it gene- rally entirely without taste, grace, or dramatic power; and whatever may be the force of expression on occasional instances, these great defects are cha- racteristic of even the best works of the trecento or early Italian arL The sentiment is there, but the just material representation is almost wholly want- ing. In all encomiums, therefore, of early Italian art, this qualification is imperative — ^there is certainly a soul, but the body is not yet developed. So much praise has been given of late to the earlier artists, that language has been found wanting to do justice to the great masters of the cmquecento ; and criticism has had recourse to depre- cating their defects rather than advo- cating their beauties. The sentimental is not the most difficult part of art, yet a little sentiment, happily displayed, has recently elevated into favourable notice many works that the absence of every other good quality had hitherto condemned to deserved obscurity. The perfection of art must consist in the co-ordinate development of the sen- suous and the sentimental; this was not approached in Italian art until far in the fifteenth century, when Dona- tello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano, Masaccio, !E11ip- pino Lippi, and Luca Signorelli showed that, in art, as in nature, the material was as essential an element of beauty as the spiritual. As an architect, Or- cagna built the celebrated '* Loggia del Lanzi," in the Piazza Grandaca, at Florence; it is stiU perfect The church of Or* San Michele, and its tabernacle, are likewise his work. Or- cagna was in the habit of signing his name differently on his paintings and his sculptures. He did as was done by Francia after him, on his sculptures he wrote Fece Andrea di Clone. Pittore; and, on his paintings, Fece Andrea di Clone, ScuUore, Rumohr has shown that the name Orgagna or Orcagna is a contraction of Arcagnuolo. Bernardo appears to have been veiy inferior to his brother: the Hell in the Gampo Santo, though said to be from a