Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/518

504 reduced drawing to the accuracy of a science, and brought perspective and the principle of foreshortening under strict geometric law. These frescoes also stand as early examples of aerial perspective; neutral and atmospheric tones appear almost for the first time, the fundamental principles of surrender and relation being in great degree due to that marvellous yet mysterious genius, Piero della Francesca. All the more interest attaches to these frescoes because of their transitional and tentative character. We here tread on the frontiers which divide classic, medieval, and modern styles; we are in the hands of a man who by the force of his will moulded elements so conflicting, that his compositions have been aptly compared, by reason of the angularity of their forms and the harshness of their colours, to a peal of bells ringing out of tune.

These master-works by Signorelli are turning-points in the history of art; we here find difficulties which had long impeded progress overcome. The drawing of the human form is based on the knowledge of anatomy; the draperies, whether symmetrical or disturbed by accident, fall naturally by the law of gravity; they show too the articulations of the form beneath — always a proof of knowledge and power; they are moreover valuable as trustworthy records of the military, monastic, and domestic costume of the time and place. These frescoes, indeed, have all the more value from the distinctive local character they bear. An oil or easel picture can be painted anywhere, and afterwards may be carried hither and thither; but these frescoes from first to last have inhered to the freehold and inheritance; the artist dwelt on the spot; when he rose in the morning to work he found models ready to hand; the monk with whom he had walked and talked at the vesper hour was ready at sunrise to lend his head and figure for pictorial uses. Signorelli had a piercing, wide-sweeping vision; his eye was open to the world on all sides. These frescoes, as we have said, show a keen insight into local character. Here are monks aged and meditative, others young and not quite subjected to spiritualism; here, too, occurs again and again the conjectural but apposite figure of St. Benedict — a venerable old man with white and flowing beard. Another representative character in these times is the knight or warrior as seen in the retinue of Totila. Perhaps the spirit of chivalry came more within the sphere of Signorelli than the spirit of Christianity; and yet the warrior is sometimes subdued by sentiment, as in a young knight of drooping head and melancholy mien which reminds the spectator of the famous figure in Orcagna's "Triumph of Death" in the Campo Santo at Pisa. Yet on the whole we are impressed with the fact that the time had come for the dying-out of types; instead of traditional forms we are offered actual portraits, painted, as we have said, on the spot. Here too among these semi-secular legends we encounter almost for the first time a simply domestic art. Take, for example, two monks caught by the saint in the act of feasting contrary to rule in a private house, each guest being served at table by a young and charming damsel. This scandal, emblazoned on the wall of a cloister, fills the spectator with amazement. At a period when artists had devoted themselves to Madonnas and saints, in a place of special sanctity lying on the confines of Siena and of Umbria, each identified with express spiritual phases of art, we come upon a picture which stings as a satire and tickles as a joke. Signorelli left his work when not half finished; the traveller on his way to Rome next meets this bold and original master in Orvieto; in Monte Oliveto we have made acquaintance with the man in his every-day mood; here among the mountain's he gathered strength for the sublime conceptions which stand in the rank of pictorial epics as the precursors to the "Last Judgment" of Michael Angelo. No painter will better repay study than Luca Signorelli; the world of art has not known enough of him.

Bazzi, who came and lived in the monastery to carry out the pictorial scheme which had broken down half way, soon showed himself as the antithesis to his predecessor Signorelli. He was a man who played with his art; he had little feeling of responsibility, no belief in a mission; in short, he scamped his work. Forsaking study, he took refuge in sentiment; his drawing is careless and infirm, his execution hasty and slight. But he received a timely reprimand from his employers, which so far put him on his mettle that some few of these compositions do no injustice to his acknowledged ability. How pure and noble the art of this painter might have been, and occasionally was, may be judged from the composition, specially commended by Vasari for its unaccustomed care,

