Botticelli's illustrations are crowded with
incident, blending, with a naive carelessness of pictorial propriety,
three phases of the same scene into one plate. The grotesques, so often
a stumbling-block to painters, who forget that the words of a poet,
which only feebly present an image to the mind, must be lowered in key
when translated into visible form, make one regret that he has not
rather chosen for illustration the more subdued imagery of the
_Purgatorio_. Yet in the scene of those who "go down quick into hell",
there is an inventive force about the fire taking hold on the upturned
soles of the feet, which proves that the design is no mere translation
of Dante's words, but a true painter's vision; while the scene of the
Centaurs wins one at once, for, forgetful of the actual circumstances
of their appearance, Botticelli has gone off with delight on the thought
of the Centaurs themselves, bright, small creatures of the woodland,
with arch baby faces and _mignon_ forms, drawing their tiny bows.
Botticelli lived in a generation of naturalists, and he might have
been a mere naturalist among them.
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