New-York tribune., 1900-10-07
NEW-YORK TRIBUNE ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT

incident had any influence one way the other
in the essentials of his art. Illustrating Dante,
he still remained himself, the weaver of strange
harmonies of line and form. Painting the
Madonna OF Venus, he remained the epicurean
master of design, finding in the evocation of
beautiful composition that satisfaction of his
aesthetic sense which the paramount ques-
tion for pagan and churchman alike in the time
Of the Renaissance. In other words, it is un-
necessary to inquire too curiously, as Count
Plunkett seems inclined to inquire into the
philosophical attitude behind the paintings re-
produced in this book. Botticelli was no mind
less maker of art for arts sake; he put
thought and feeling into his pictures, and
could not have endured to send them out into
the world without the impress of his brain and
soul But whatever emotions may have been
excited in him when he painting Biblical
subject for the Pope, the Birth of Venus
for the Medicean villa at Careggi. the object of
his last worship was really something beyond
the jurisdiction of priest, or prince; It was the
goddess of beauty and naught else.
The diversity of theme which marks the body
of work left by him points to something more
than ordinary versatility. 1t gives, indeed, the
best possible answer to Count Plunkett's init
nation that Bottcelli had but controlling
force within his spiritual consciousness. He
wandered, to be sure in many realms of thought
and fancy, dreaming perhaps all the time of
some philosophic goal toward which his favorite
poet and his best beloved moralist were leading
him, but he well content to pause whenever
the eye of imagination rested on some new and
lovely figure group or landscape The last
word may seem i'll chosen, but the fact is that
Count Plunkett is justified in rejecting the die
tum Of Leonardo that BotticelH could not paint
landscape. He could and did paint it with Won
derful verisimilitude and charm. His gardens
are real enough to make wish to gather his
flowers and herbs and foliage" This may
slightly overstate the case, but there is nothing
to subtract from the authors further observa-
ton. His stretches of country, with steep or
sIoping river banks; his hills, smoothly rounded,
or like SOracte, that
from out the plain
Heaves like long swept wave about to break,
And the cuCl hangs pausing,
are not impossible, though designed to lend
their outlines to decorative schemes. Some
| times his scenes are rendered with such care
and truth that those who deny him this gift
must assume that another artist came to his
aid In truth. Botticelli though always sub
jective in his treatment of it, is one Of the
founders of landscape painting in Italy
A dozen examples might be cited in support of
this argument, beginning with the fairylike but
indubitaby sylvan and veracOus "Primavera,' -
and ending, say, with the 'tondo' of the Ambro-
siana at Milan that picture of THE Madonna
with Infant Christ and Angels in which the
| angels drawing back the curtains of brodered
pavilion disclose a landscape of haunting beauty,
green hills rising above a peaceful lake, and
slender trees raising their feathery tops against