Identifier: historyofpaintin01crow (find matches)
Title: A history of painting in north Italy; Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Millan, Friuli, Brescia, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century
Year: 1871 (1870s)
Authors: Crowe, J. A. (Joseph Archer), 1825-1896 Cavalcaselle, G. B. (Giovanni Battista), 1820-1897
Subjects: Painting Painting, Gothic Painting, Renaissance
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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copious, firm, anddecisive. The crowded figures impress us with theidea of numbers; but their variety is as great as theirmultiplication; to count them is difficult, yet each onehas his individuality in action, in form, and in face. Allare grave, a little short in stature, perhaps, but weightyand dignified; and if, in the dresses, the piled nature ofthe folds and their occasional stiftness are striking, wemust not forget that the stuffs in which the people aremostly clothed, are brocades of thick and substantialtexture. The simpler elements of linear perspectiveperfectly applied by a man who was familiar with itsrules, would alone have done much to realize the effectsof distance and depth; but these effects are greatlyenhanced by play of atmosphere; and the numerousvarieties of tone which bring each personage or stoneto its proper distance, are rendered with absolute mas-tery. The third of this most interesting series is engravedin these pages; it represents the recovery of the relic
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Chap. VII. GENTILE AND GIOVANNI BELLINI. 133 after it had been lost in the water; and recei^es anadventitious interest from the introduction of CatherineCornara^ ex-queen of Cyprus, with her suite amongstthe spectators lining the sides of the canal. ^ Gentilenow solves a new and more difficult problem thanany that he had hitherto tried. To find the van-ishing and measuring points of buildings at right anglesto the plane of delineation, is, as we have seen, acomparatively simple operation. It was an operationwith which Piero della Francesca and Mantegna wereperfectly acquainted. Not so the discovery of measuringpoints for blocks placed at accidental angles in thepicture. Mantegna thought once to solve this problem,and the trial was unsuccessful. Gentile was morefortunate, and gives the lie of houses following thewindings of a canal with scientific truth. His progressin realizing the idea of atmosphere is equally apparent,and he imparts to the richly-dressed females to the leftsuch abso

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