The art of the Pitti Palace : with a short history of the building of the palace, and its owners, and an appreciation of its treasures . acks a feeling for proportion and general har-mony. It is the grace and expression in his figures— almost a transitory quality — which charm. Hispower does not lie in depicting actual contour andshape. His people are illusive and stimulate theimagination. His pictures occupy the same rela-tion to art as that held by Spensers FaerieQueene tO literature. Does any one know ex-actly what this quality is, and yet does any one failto enjoy it? The Madonna of the Ro
The art of the Pitti Palace : with a short history of the building of the palace, and its owners, and an appreciation of its treasures . acks a feeling for proportion and general har-mony. It is the grace and expression in his figures— almost a transitory quality — which charm. Hispower does not lie in depicting actual contour andshape. His people are illusive and stimulate theimagination. His pictures occupy the same rela-tion to art as that held by Spensers FaerieQueene tO literature. Does any one know ex-actly what this quality is, and yet does any one failto enjoy it? The Madonna of the Rose-Bush, hanging nearby, is considered to be genuine by most authorities,but doubted by Morelli, to whose scientific tests itdoes not entirely respond. It is chiefly remarkable,on a first glance, for the strange experiment in com-position, which has led Botticelli to dispose the fig-ures horizontally instead of vertically; the extremestoop of the Virgins figure and that of the Child,as she lowers him to embrace St. John, leading tothis unprecedented result. There is a very beauti-fully painted rose-bush in the background, from. MADONNA OF THE ROSE-BUSHBy Botticelli; in the Stanza of Prometheus Ubc Stansa ot prometbeus 267 which the picture derives its name. Ulmann con-siders it to be by Botticelli himself; these experi-ments and whimsical arrangements of figures arequite characteristic of the work of Sandro. It hascertain things about it which suggest the work ofsome of the modern decorative painters, especiallythose of the English school. Botticelli probably never painted the portraitwhich is called La Belle Simonetta, or, if he did,it is certainly not the lady in question. This isno beauty, with her long-nosed profile and her long,crooked neck, and clad in a quiet brown dress andwhite head-dress. She is certainly, as Woltmannsays, Simple to excess. La Belle Simonetta wasthe mistress of Giuliano de Medici, and it seemssafe to assert, from what one knows of the aesthetictas
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectpainting, bookyear190
