Vincenzo Foppa of Brescia, founder of the Lombard school, his life ...

86 VINCENZO FOPPA
Venetian training. The hair brushed back from the high forehead and showing
the ear is treated in a manner almost reminiscent of the methods of
Northern art, and in this particular, and in the arrangement of the drapery
about the head, closely resembles the treatment in Mr. Berenson's Madonna.
The spontaneous gesture of the Infant Saviour and the great vitality of expression
manifest in the treatment of the head give proof of Foppa's
intimate observation of nature and power of representing it in a manner
wholly convincing, qualities which we shall frequently have occasion to note
in his authentic paintings. Taken in conjunction with other external
characteristics of form and colour, they stamp his compositions with the
hall-mark of authenticity, and enable students to distinguish with some
measure of certainty between his own works and those of his followers and
imitators.
Later in date than the Trivulzio Madonna, but most intimately connected
with it, is the Virgin and Child just alluded to in the collection of Mr. Bernhard
Berenson at Settignano, near Florence. The Madonna seated holds the
Infant Saviour to her breast;' he turns his head and looks out of the picture
with an ingenuous expression and with a charming infantile gesture clutches
at his right foot, the master in this repeating a motive treated in the lunette
fresco of Illasi (by Stefano da Zevio?). On the left we have a simple tapestry
hanging, brown in tone with golden threads, which fills three-quarters of the
background ; in the small remaining space is a window opening through
which is seen a landscape of that distinctive type for which Foppa always had
a special predilection, with bushes, water, and hills,
relieved against a sky light
in tone towards the horizon and cloudy above. The flesh tones are as usual
very grey with white lights about the eyes and nose. The robe of the
Madonna is of a vivid shade of red, her mantle dark blue with decorative
border in gold. The Child wears a little shirt of a yellow shade with strong
lights, the left sleeve of which shows all Foppa's characteristic manner of
treating folds and drapery ;
the left hand of the Madonna is full of feeling and
is identical in form with the right hand of the Virgin in the Trivulzio picture ;
it also shows a close connection with the hands of the angel in the Annunciation
at Arcore and with those of the Ecce Homo in the Cheramy Collection
^ This subject, so frequently treated, known in Italian as "la Vergine allattante,"
was the medium through which primitive art sought to emphasize the
Divine maternity
of the B. Virgin and to give graphic expression to the words of the ecclesiastical
liturgy: " Salvatorem sasculorum, ipsum regem angelorum, sola Virgo lactabat ubere
de coelo pleno" (The Virgin of Virgins fed at her heaven-filled breast the Saviour of
the world even the King of Angels. Roman Breviary: Feast of the Circumcision,
8 resp. at Matins)—a beautiful idea which undoubtedly inspired many of these compositions
in the best period of art.