Fra Bartolommeo

Fra Bartolommeo (re-edited by Horace Shipp and Flora Kendrick) [with accents]

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Title: Fra Bartolommeo
Author: Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7222] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 27, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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FRA BARTOLOMMEO
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