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Chat. XIII. FRA BARTOLOMMEO DELLA PORTA. 443 The first glance at this composition, which was de livered in the spring of 1507, suggests a doubt as to whether it was ever finished, so raw is the impasto. 1 Pro longed examination shows that this appearance is due to flaying and restoring. But, however ill-calculated its pre sent condition may be to please the eye, the distribution is such as to retrieve in part even that deficiency, and to excite the highest admiration ; whilst the damage done to the surface lays bare the secrets of Fra Bartolommeo’s palet. They are evidently the same as those of da Vinci in the portraits at the Ambrosiana, the flesh being rubbed in and modelled with brown earth, and then brought up to a cheerful general key of a fluid semi transparence. After this, the half-tones and shadows were scumbled to a bluish grey with more or less depth, ac cording to the darkness required, and the lights were touched on in a broad mass over all, the whole being united at last by glazes of the thinnest texture, which have now in a great measure disappeared. This was the system of handling which owed its origin and progress to da Vinci, who carried it to perfection in the Mona Lisa; — the system which Fra Bartolommeo improved as ho grew older, and which Andrea del Sarto at last tho roughly understood. It was the novel one which Vasari describes as having surpassed that of Francia and Peru- gino, when practised by Leonardo, Giorgione, the Fra, and Raphael. 2 It is, however, but a variety of Perugi- no’s method of strata, with the inevitable rawness pro- landscapes of the triptych shutters at the Uffizi have something of the same peculiarity, which is also remarkable in the Vision of S. Bernard at the Academy, one may class it amongst the works of Fra Bartolommeo at the period we are now considering. 1 No. 6G. Galerie des grands Tableaux. Florence Academy of arts (Vas. VII. 157). The Virgin appears on a cloud supported by cherubs, with boy angels and se raphs. She holds the infant in her arms; and he gives the blessing. S. B. kneels at a desk in the middle of the foreground, SS. Benedict and John Evangelist be hind him. Left of the desk is a little arched picture of the Cruci fixion between two saints. The blue mantle, falling from the Vir gin’s head, is renewed, as are the head and mantle of the Benedict, the head and red cloak of the Ev angelist. ! Vas. VII. 6—7.
