Evening star., 1938-12-25


this to the Nation-and especially
to us residing in Washington, where
the collection will ever be at hand
and available!
There are already in other public
collections certain excellent eX-
amples of the Madonna and Child
theme as set forth both by painters
and sculptors of the past. For in
stance, in the W. A. Clark collection
in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, is a
very handsome painting of the Ma
donna and Child With Saints and
Angels by Perugino. the teacher
of Raphael. 1t is an shaped
canvas, octagonal, and shows the
Virgin holding the Child enthroned.
TWO female saints to the right and
left, two angels, adoring, at the rear.
The dominant color is red, rather
than that blue of which this painter
was so particularly fond. But it is
a charming composition and very
reverently rendered. Hanging in the
round gallery entered from the main
staircase and leading into the Clark
wing, II instantly catches the eye of
the visitor and holds attention. In
this collection also is a Madonna
Child and Saint John" by Annibale
Carracci, l6th-century painter of
the Bolognese school, which, while
we'll painted, shows a falling off in
conception, as we'll as execution,
which came with the close of the
renaissance period-or shortly be-
fore.
More in the spirit of the earlier
palnters-to whom, even more per-
haps than the Duerer, art was Gin
TRUTH religion-is a panel in the
Clark collection of the Madonna
and Child by Donatello, whose
dates were 1386-l466, almost pre-
cisely those of Fra Angelica, the
painter who covered the walls of
San Marco with his naive, lovely
paintings. This is not one of Dona-
tello's greatest works, but it is deeply
imbued with the feeling of the time
"a work in faience, charming in COL
or and we'll calculated to create, in
the beholder, gentle emotion.
A contemporary of both Donatel-
10 and Fra Angelica was Luca della
Robbia, who with his nephews, car
ried to perfection polychrome sculp-
ture and set forth in this medium
wall panels in relief which depicted
the Madonna and Christ Child"
as they had never been depicted be-
fore, nor since, with a marvellous
blending OF that which is both hu-
man and divine. 1t is an extraordi-
nary thing that whereas many of
the early Italian painters represent
ed the Christ Child crudely and as
almost misshapen, the della Robbia
plaques, modelled in high relief, show
him in all the beauty of babyhood,
correctly drawn and modelled, inno-
cent but intelligent of expression,
adorable, symbolic. AS has already
been said, three examples of the
della Robbia rendition of this theme,
most sacred to all Christians, are in
cluded in the Mellon collection, but
the best place, as every one knows,
to see the works of these gifted
sculptors is in Florence, where their
bambino medallions ornament the
exterior Of the building, once chill
dren's hospital and where in the
National Museum are to be seen, in
proper environment, some of their
finest panels with decorative borders
There are already in the National
Collection of Fine Arts certain paint
ings of what in this instance may be
referred to as of the Christmas
theme. In the collection, willed to
National Gallery of Art by Har-
riet Lane Johnston, is large paint
ing OF Virgin and Child" by Ber-
nardino Luino, who lived between
1850 and 1885. part of a larger
composition painted presumably as a
mural decoration for some church
or convent; and in the Ralph Cross
johnson collection, likewise given to
the National, are three important
Virgin and Child" paintings-one a
circular canvas showing, with the
Madonna and Child, St. John and
an angel, the work of Mainardi. a
Florentine painter of the 18th CEN
tury, brother-in-law of Domenico
Ghirlandajo, a charming work fully
representative: another a "Virein
and Child" by Bernard van Or
ley, Flemish painter of the 10th
century, greatly influenced by the
works of Raphael, and the third, a
Madonna and Child" by Govaert
Flinck, 18th century Dutch school
pupil of Rembrandt.
The story is one which never grows