of the Madonna and Child in the Louvre, once also attributed to Piero della Francesca, but now almost universally accepted as Baldovinettiʼs
[Plate]. Here the veil of the Madonna is rendered by innumerable spots of white laid on over the darker colouring of the head and hair, the spots being concentrated wherever a thicker fold of the veil has to be represented. The whole of the landscape is rendered in a similar pointilliste method, and the same is true of the elaborately drawn ivy which climbs over the face of the distant cliff.
Now, the profile portrait in the National Gallery is an equally striking example of the same technical peculiarities. Here the whole of the modelling of the high lights upon the flesh is effected by the use of innumerable small dots of light that barely tell upon the blonde middle tone of the flesh. In the necklace each bead has its constellation of light yellow dots disposed in exactly the same way as the high lights upon the jars in The Feast at Cana. The edges of the drapery are also ornamented with minute dots, and finally, since the dot, used at first merely as a means of gradation of tone, had by now become something of an obsession, large spots are used with a purely decorative effect over the drapery of the sleeve. The line block in the text will serve to illustrate the peculiarities here mentioned; owing to the fact that the half-tone process attains its result of tone-gradation precisely by Baldovinetti’s pointilliste method, it becomes unserviceable for exhibiting its use in the originals. A comparison with the work of Piero della Francesca and Uccello in the National Gallery will show how completely different their technique is from Baldovinetti’s, and, so far as I am aware, neither Paolo Uccello nor Piero della Francesca ever used Baldovinetti’s pointilliste method. The only other artist in whom anything of the same kind is to be detected is the unknown master whose works still sometimes pass as Baldovinetti’s, and whom Mr. Berenson has, I think wrongly, identified with Piero Francesco Fiorentino.
This artist, who was the head of a large commercial workshop that executed innumerable replicas from the same cartoons, does indeed use from time to time somewhat similar methods, but this only tends to prove my point, since it is evident upon other grounds, that he must at one time have worked in Baldovinetti’s bottega. An example by him, in which something of the pointilliste method is visible, is No. 1199 in the National Gallery.
The study of formal characteristics bears out the conclusion already based upon technical pecu
liarities. Comparing the profile portrait [Front. ] with the Madonna in the Louvre [Plate], it will be seen that there is a striking similarity in the proportion and forms of the features, and although one is full-faced and the other in profile, if one imagines the Virgin turned round, one will see
that almost all the forms would be similar. The nose has the same character; still more marked is the sharp demarcation of the top of the upper lip and the drawing of the line between the lips. In his drapery Baldovinetti shows a fairly consistent and highly characteristic method of design. The folds are thick and rounded, as though the material were heavy and soft. He is fond of taking folds at right angles across the direction of the limb, and outlining them with very strong, firm edges and full rounded corners. There is everywhere a peculiar cleanness and sweetness in his line, though it sometimes tends to degenerate into somewhat heavy and clumsy forms, a fault upon which Vasari himself animadverts.
By way of comparison there is here reproduced in outline the drapery over the leg of one of the Disciples in the early panel of the Transfiguration
[Figure 2]. It will be seen that the forms here agree closely with those upon the sleeve in our portrait.
Very characteristic, too, of Baldovinetti is the drawing of the hair, which falls in a lock at the back of the head. This may be almost exactly matched in the lock of hair in the Louvre Madonna, and is another indication that the same model may have inspired both pictures.
Finally, the colour scheme is, I think, decisive against the attribution to Piero della Francesca or Paolo Uccello. The former used in his earlier works a terra-verde preparation for the flesh, and later on, when he worked in oils, adopted the Flemish brown underpainting. Uccello, I believe, almost always employed the terra-verde ground. Piero della Francesca is always pearly and cool, with an intense luminosity in his rendering of flesh. Uccello does not attain the same luminosity, but has a peculiar freshness and gaiety of colour, and the final result is always more or less influenced by the green underpaint. Baldovinetti, on the other hand, is characterized by the use of dry colour, with a tendency to straw-yellows. He, I believe, started the practice, which persisted among many Florentine artists, of using an ochre ground for flesh painting so as to get greater warmth; and precisely this dry straw-coloured harmony is what distinguishes the portrait in the National Gallery.
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[Plate]. Here the veil of the Madonna is rendered by innumerable spots of white laid on over the darker colouring of the head and hair, the spots being concentrated wherever a thicker fold of the veil has to be represented. The whole of the landscape is rendered in a similar pointilliste method, and the same is true of the elaborately drawn ivy which climbs over the face of the distant cliff.
Now, the profile portrait in the National Gallery is an equally striking example of the same technical peculiarities. Here the whole of the modelling of the high lights upon the flesh is effected by the use of innumerable small dots of light that barely tell upon the blonde middle tone of the flesh. In the necklace each bead has its constellation of light yellow dots disposed in exactly the same way as the high lights upon the jars in The Feast at Cana. The edges of the drapery are also ornamented with minute dots, and finally, since the dot, used at first merely as a means of gradation of tone, had by now become something of an obsession, large spots are used with a purely decorative effect over the drapery of the sleeve. The line block in the text will serve to illustrate the peculiarities here mentioned; owing to the fact that the half-tone process attains its result of tone-gradation precisely by Baldovinetti’s pointilliste method, it becomes unserviceable for exhibiting its use in the originals. A comparison with the work of Piero della Francesca and Uccello in the National Gallery will show how completely different their technique is from Baldovinetti’s, and, so far as I am aware, neither Paolo Uccello nor Piero della Francesca ever used Baldovinetti’s pointilliste method. The only other artist in whom anything of the same kind is to be detected is the unknown master whose works still sometimes pass as Baldovinetti’s, and whom Mr. Berenson has, I think wrongly, identified with Piero Francesco Fiorentino.
This artist, who was the head of a large commercial workshop that executed innumerable replicas from the same cartoons, does indeed use from time to time somewhat similar methods, but this only tends to prove my point, since it is evident upon other grounds, that he must at one time have worked in Baldovinetti’s bottega. An example by him, in which something of the pointilliste method is visible, is No. 1199 in the National Gallery.
The study of formal characteristics bears out the conclusion already based upon technical pecu
liarities. Comparing the profile portrait [Front. ] with the Madonna in the Louvre [Plate], it will be seen that there is a striking similarity in the proportion and forms of the features, and although one is full-faced and the other in profile, if one imagines the Virgin turned round, one will see
that almost all the forms would be similar. The nose has the same character; still more marked is the sharp demarcation of the top of the upper lip and the drawing of the line between the lips. In his drapery Baldovinetti shows a fairly consistent and highly characteristic method of design. The folds are thick and rounded, as though the material were heavy and soft. He is fond of taking folds at right angles across the direction of the limb, and outlining them with very strong, firm edges and full rounded corners. There is everywhere a peculiar cleanness and sweetness in his line, though it sometimes tends to degenerate into somewhat heavy and clumsy forms, a fault upon which Vasari himself animadverts.
By way of comparison there is here reproduced in outline the drapery over the leg of one of the Disciples in the early panel of the Transfiguration
[Figure 2]. It will be seen that the forms here agree closely with those upon the sleeve in our portrait.
Very characteristic, too, of Baldovinetti is the drawing of the hair, which falls in a lock at the back of the head. This may be almost exactly matched in the lock of hair in the Louvre Madonna, and is another indication that the same model may have inspired both pictures.
Finally, the colour scheme is, I think, decisive against the attribution to Piero della Francesca or Paolo Uccello. The former used in his earlier works a terra-verde preparation for the flesh, and later on, when he worked in oils, adopted the Flemish brown underpainting. Uccello, I believe, almost always employed the terra-verde ground. Piero della Francesca is always pearly and cool, with an intense luminosity in his rendering of flesh. Uccello does not attain the same luminosity, but has a peculiar freshness and gaiety of colour, and the final result is always more or less influenced by the green underpaint. Baldovinetti, on the other hand, is characterized by the use of dry colour, with a tendency to straw-yellows. He, I believe, started the practice, which persisted among many Florentine artists, of using an ochre ground for flesh painting so as to get greater warmth; and precisely this dry straw-coloured harmony is what distinguishes the portrait in the National Gallery.
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