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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. xii. SEPT. 25, 1915.

JEssai sur la Mythologie Figuree et VHisioire Profane dans la Peinture Italienne de la Renaissance. Par Salomon Eeinach. (Paris, Leroux.)

'THIS essay is reprinted from the Revue archeolo- gique, and consists for the most part of a catalogue of pictures arranged under the names of gods and heroic personages belonging to -classical antiquity. Only works dating from ^before 1580 are included ; to some of them a short description is added ; in each case it is stated where the work now is, and frequent references are given to books on art which mention -them, the whole being comprised under fifty-five headings.

M. Beinach's object in thus putting together notes collected during a considerable period in the course of other studies is to start the forma- tion of a body of material from which to deter- mine the character of the direct influence of classical antiquity upon the Italian Renaissance. He invites scholars and students of art to com- municate to him additions and corrections, which will be published by the Revue, and requests 'that where possible photographs or drawings should be sent as well. This latter request is the more to the point as M. Beinach's list is already nearly exhaustive in regard to well-known work -of the kind falling within the period he has chosen. As he truly remarks, if we throw out as not strictly representative the work of the greatest artists of the Benaissance and their schools, we find but a slender production of this -sort, bearing evidence to a correspondingly slender knowledge of, and interest in, classical history and mythology on the part of the patrons of art. As might be expected, Venus is by far the most popular classical figure, and next to her, it would seem, comes Cupid, though Bacchus and Hercules also have found fairly abundant illustration, and Jupiter as a lover evidently commanded interest the stories of Europa and of Leda in particular. Again, we may note the number of paintings of the Sibyls connecting links as they were, to the imagination of the learned, between paganism and Christianity.

The subject here opened up should certainly engage attention. It belongs to a movement in art analogous to that recent movement in science towards a study of function as opposed to morpho- logy pure and simple. We have, perhaps, gone as far as we at present can go in the criticism of works of art as such, with a minimum of reference to their subject. Having done so much, we shall, doubtless, not fall back upon the crude " story- -telling " conception of the relation of a work of art to its subject, or, what is more important, of the reaction of the subject upon the work ; but some theory of the relation of the reaction is essential, and the want of it begins to be felt in the dicta of modern art critics. Perhaps a study of the influence of classical subjects upon the works of art dedicated to them during the Benais- sance would be as good a point of departure as

This brochure has a few illustrations all of great interest, and particularly a ' Battle of Amazons ' from a Florentine " cassone," where the Amazons are riding to the attack of a city riding astride in long robes, and looking, as M. Beinach remarks, more like beyuines on horseback than heroines.

' L'INTEBMEDIAIBE.'

LAST week we quoted from L 'Intermediate a paragraph about Italy. To-day we give some references to the Germans :

Ce qu'on a Ail des Allemands (Ixx. ; Ixxi. 21, 57, 106, 146, 237, 288). Dans les ' Curiositez fran- coises pour supplement aux Dictionnaires, ou Becueil de plusieurs belles proprietez avec une infinite de proverbes et quolibets pour 1'explication de toutes sortes de Livres,' par Antoine Oudin, secretaire interprette de Sa Majeste", imprim^ a Bouen, MDCLVI., on trouve :

Vous me prenez pour un Allemand, idest pour un " ignorant qui se laisse facilement attraper " ; c'est parce que nos marchands surprenoient autres fois les Estrangers.

Contrefaire YAlleman, " feindre d'estre gros- sier." Je n'y entends que le haut Alleman, i. " je n'y entends rien."

LE COMTE DE BONZAGLIE.

M. Chantel, de Clermont-Ferrand, a copi6 dans ' Le Palais de la Fortune,' publi a Lyon en 1690, le passage suivant, qu'il communique aux Annales du 28 fevrier, p. 288 :

" Les Allemans sont grands beuveurs, comme ils confessent eux-mesmes, et ne s'adonnent pas a ce vice seulement par volupt4, mais encore ils croyent que c'est courtoisie et affabilite 1, tellement qu'il y a quelques princes, a la bonne grace desquels il n'y a point de plus court ny de meilleur chemin : car les Allemans ne croyent point recevoir plus honnestement les estrangers, que quand ils les convient a un banquet long et ou on boit d'autant : et se tiennent assurez de la bien veillance de ceux qu'ils recoivent, lors qu'ils ne refusent point de s'enyvrer avec eux !

" Ils hayssent tous ceux qui semblent faire les fins, soit qu'a cause du vin qu'ils prenent, ils ne peuvent celer leurs secrets, soit que leurs esprits 6tant comme retouches dans ces corps, ils soup- connent la subtilit6 des autres. .. .Quant an peuple, il obelt tellement a ceux qui lui com- mandent, que souvent il se rapporte a ceux de la religion qu'il doit embrasser, et rarement arrive du contraire.

" Ils Sont grands voyageurs, et etant retourn^s en leur maison, ils retiennent ou font semblant de retenir les mceurs qu'ils ont apprises ailleurs. Entre eux, c'est une chose rare que les estrangers demeurent ou parviennent aux dignites, et leur est presque un nom d'injure d'etre appe!4 estr anger."

Les Bodies d'aujourd'hui, en monopolisant Dieu le vieux Dieu allemand ne se montrent pas indignes de ceux de 1600, dans leur x&no- phobie. CAMILLE PITOLLET.

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ON all communications must be written the name and .address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

BARON BOURGEOIS. Forwarded.

J. ISAACS ('The Pursuits of Literature'). Written by Thomas James Mathias, of whom the 4 Diet. Nat. Biog.' furnishes a long account.

CORRIGENDUM. Ante* p. 207, col. 1, 1. 2, read i * ! surmounts the white saltire."