Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll.
- Anna Brownell Jameson
- Date:
- 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll. Source: Wellcome Collection.
258/335 page 216
![decorating them, and from an early familiarity with the remains of antiquity lying around him, the mind of the uneducated mechanic became unconsciously imbued with the very spirit of antiquity; not one of Raphael’s scholars was so distin- guished for a classical purity of taste as Polidoro. He painted, chiefly in chiaroscuro (that is, in two colors, light and shade), friezes, composed of processions of figures, such as we see in the ancient bas-reliefs, sea and river gods, tritons, bacchantes, fauns, satyrs, Cupids. At Hampton Court there are six pieces of a small narrow frieze, representing boys and animals, which apparently formed the top of a bedstead or some other piece of furniture; these will give some faint idea of the decorative style of Polidoro. This painter was much employed at Naples, and afterwards at Messina, where he was assassinated by one of his servants for the sake of his money. Pellegrino da Modena, an excellent painter, and one of Raphael’s most valuable assistants in his Scriptural subjects, carried the “ Roman school ” to Modena. At this time there was in Ferrara a school of painters very peculiar in style, distinguished chiefly by extreme elegance of execution, a miniature-like neatness in the details, and deep, vigorous, contrasted colors — as intense crimson, vivid green, brilliant white, approximated; a little grotesque in point of taste, and rather like the very early German school in feeling and treatment, but with more grace and ideality. Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi of Ferrara were two brothers, whom Ariosto [in Orlando Furioso] mentions simply as “ Due Dossi” — Two Dossi.1 It seems that Battista Dossi excelled in landscape backgrounds, and bad a thorough and poetical feeling for nature. [Two of his landscapes are in the Borghese Gallery at Rome. Dosso Dossi was distinguished for the mar- vellous richness of his color. His masterpiece is in the pub- lic gallery at Ferrara. In the centre are the enthroned A irgin and Child with the little St. John Baptist. St. John is seated below with other saints; in compartments on either side are St. Sebastian,'St. George, St. Gregory, and St. Ambrose,] Two fine pictures I remember, one in the Dresden Gallery (the Pre- . 1 [There was formerly some confusion among art critics in regard to the respective works of the* two, but the difficulty has been removed by modern researches.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24877888_0258.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
