Guide to the Exhibition of Drawings and Sketches by Continental and British Masters; In the Print and Drawing Gallery (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891. Excerpt: ... DIVISION II. SCHOOLS OP THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. ITALIAN SCHOOLS. The state of Italian art during this period is in the main one of decadence; facility of hand outrunning artistic inspiration or conviction, and the close study of nature being abandoned for the lax and self-complacent repetition of traditional formulas. Drawings by the ordinary seventeenth-century painters of devotional or mythological subjects in Italy abound in nearly all collections, and are for the most part tedious and uninstructive objects of study. But among the craftsmen of these late Italian schools occur occasionally men of exceptional gifts, who by some special energy of temperament, or vivacity of observation or fancy, produced work which counts for something real in the history of art. The examples here shown are limited as far as possible to work of this quality. Stefano DELLA BELLA. Etcher and draughtsman: b. 1610, d. 1G64: pupil of Orazio Vanni and Canta Gallina: worked at Florence and Eome, and in Fi ance: famous especially for fertility of invention and lightness of hand as an etcher. 67. Fantoccini players. Pen and ink and sepia wash. 68. Costume sketches for a masque of Hypermnestra, viz: (a) A female attendant. (b) A female attendant, with a separate study for the head-dress. Pen and sepia outlines, with colour wash. From the Gibson-Craig collection. 69. Costume sketches for a masque of Hypermnestra, viz.: (a) A Fury: with separate studies for the mask. (b) A Fury. Pen and ink outlines, with colour wash. From the Gibson-Craig collection. 70. Costume sketches for a masque of Hypermnestra, viz.: (a) Page to Hypermnestra. (b) A page: with two separate studies for head. Pen and sepia, with colour wash. From the Gibson-Craig collection. 71. Costume sketches...