Identifier: antonioallegrida00riccrich (find matches)
Title: Antonio Allegri da Correggio, his life, his friends, and his time
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Ricci, Corrado, 1858-1934 Simmons, Florence
Subjects: Correggio, 1489?-1534
Publisher: New York : Charles Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ive angels, illuminated by the light whichreaches them from the Babe, but less brilliantly than the figuresbelow. Mengs and others suppose this to indicate that they arespirits, and not corporeal beings. A painter of the Renaissance isscarcely likely to have been so far imbued with mediaeval meta-physics. Correggios main concern v/as with the pictorial effect, whichdemanded a strong chiaroscuro in the figures of the shepherds, thatis to say, in the central part of the picture, and not in the angels above.We know that sentimental minds dislike this materialisation ofimpressions ; but honest criticism should be proof against the seduc-tions of academic mysticism, more especially in the case of an artistlike Correggio, whose greatness needs not the foreign aid of theologyand metaphysics. In boldness of foreshortening and animation of action these angelsare closely allied to those in the cupola of the cathedral. Three ofthem gaze with joyful smiles at the Infant Jesus ; the other two, who
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the British Mu LA NOTTE 291 seem to invite the shepherds to worship him, arc more vivacious. One,who is robed in red, and faces the spectator, advances, clasping- hishands in prayer ; the other, in a green mantle, who is seen from behind,draws up one leg, and extends the other, opening his arms, and de-scribing a semicircle in his (light, as he looks down on the shepherdsbehind him. On the ground there are great blocks of stones, forming steps, andtall plants, all paintcd in greenish tones, and shrouded in a penumbnifull of delicate reflections. An admirable relief is given by the lumi-nous ray, which, passing between the Virgins arms, glances on herrobe and mantle near one knee, and the lights, which follow theoutline of the old mans figure, and, striking off towards the ground,define a kind of side scene which marks the distance between thetwo groups of figures. Behind the chief group, in the middle distance, St. Joseph endeav-ours to draw away the ass from the manger to the barrier

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