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FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA D'AGNOLO


By Leader Scott

Author Of "A Nook In The Apennines"


Re-Edited By Horace Shipp and Flora Kendrick, A.R.B.S.




_The reproductions in this series are from official photographs of the
National Collections, or from photographs by Messrs. Andersen, Alinari
or Braun._




FOREWORD


Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest
period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists
who worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole
host of exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the
three painters with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra
Bartolommeo linking up with the religious art of the preceding period,
with that of Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the
studio of Cosimo Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely
"modern" painters of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo
himself, is a transition painter in this supreme period. Technique and
the work of hand and brain are rapidly taking the place of inspiration
and the desire to convey a message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming
an end in itself. The scientific painters, perfecting their studies of
anatomy and of perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools
and their mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico.

As a painter at this end of a period of transition--a painter whose
spiritual leanings would undoubtedly have been with the earlier men, but
whose period was too strong for him--Fra Bartolommeo is of particular
interest; and Albertinelli, for all the fiery surface difference of his
outlook is too closely bound by the ties of his friendship for the Frate
to have any other viewpoint.

Andrea del Sarto presents yet another phenomenon: that of the artist
endowed with all the powers of craftsmanship yet serving an end
neither basically spiritual nor basically aesthetic, but definitely
professional. We have George Vasari's word for it; and Vasari's blame
upon the extravagant and too-well-beloved Lucrezia. To-day we are so
accustomed to the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can
accept it in Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists
were unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian
art is full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of
referees to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals
of payment. Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such
quarrels, and although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money
for his work, the order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the
_scudi_ which the Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to Andrea it
must be added that this was not the only motive for his activities;
it was not without cause that the men of his time called him "_senza
errori_," the faultless painter; and the production of a vast quantity
of his work rather than good prices for individual pictures made his art
pay to the extent it did. A pot-boiler in masterpieces, his works have
place in every gallery of importance, and he himself stands very close
to the three greatest; men of the Renaissance.

Both Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli are little known in this country.
Practically nothing has been written about them and very few of their
works are in either public galleries or private collections. It is in
Italy, of course, that one must study their originals, although the
great collections usually include one or two. Most interesting from
the viewpoint of the study of art is the evolution of the work of the
artist-monk as he came under the influence of the more dramatic modern
and frankly sensational work of Raphael, of the Venetians and of
Michelangelo. In this case (many will say in that of the art of
the world) this tendency detracted rather than helped the work. The
draperies, the dramatic poses, the artistic sensation arrests the mind
at the surface of the picture. It is indeed strange that this devout
churchman should have succumbed to the temptation, and there are moments
when one suspects that his somewhat spectacular pietism disguised the
spirit of one whose mind had little to do with the mysticism of the
mediaeval church. Or perhaps it was that the strange friendship between
him and Albertinelli, the man of the cloister and the man of the world,
effected some alchemy in the mind of each. The story of that lifelong
friendship, strong enough to overcome the difficulties of a definite
partnership between the strict life of the monastery and the busy life
of the _bottega_, is one of the most fascinating in art history.

Mr. Leader Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating
studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of
the period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to
modify his acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially
since he himself tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves
her as the villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The
inclusion of a chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower
of Fra Bartolommeo, scarcely does justice in modern eyes to this fine
artist, whose own day and generation did him such honour and paid him
so well. But the author's general conclusions as to the place in art
and the significance of the lives of the three painters with whom he
is chiefly concerned remains unchallenged, and we have in the volume a
necessary study to place alongside those of Leonardo, of Michelangelo
and of Raphael for an understanding of the culmination of the
Renaissance in Italy.

                                               HORACE SHIPP.




CONTENTS.


FRA