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

Chap. III. MADONNA, JOHNSON COLLECTION 87
in Paris.* The beautiful drawing and pose of the head of the Madonna, the
plastic modelling" of her features, the life-like attitude and animated movement
of the Child, added to
the extreme simplicity and charm of the composition,
render this one of the most attractive works by Foppa of this date known to
us. The decorative borders adorned with letters on the mantle and robe of
the Madonna, a peculiarity noticeable in this picture, though also seen in a
lesser degree in the Noseda and Trivulzio pictures, were much in vogue with
painters of this date,
though by few were they used so profusely and with such
persistent frequency as by Foppa and his school. Constant intercourse with
Orientals induced the early Venetian painters to adopt arable letters as their
models, in place of the geometrical patterns formerly used, imitating perhaps
those amulets of parchment or gold inscribed with a verse of the Koran which
were worn as charms by the Mussulman population of the East. Foppa
having no Oriental models to copy adapted to his own use the ordinary
alphabet, occasionally reversing the letters and interspersing them with other
devices, seemingly with no object beyond that of decorative effect. It is
quite the exception if we are able to detect any meaning in the letters which
decorate these Foppesque borders, and for the most part they show us
capricious and arbitrary combinations and nothing further. Still, in his
picture of the Pieta at Berlin, on the border of the garment of Nicodemus, the
painter's name may be read, and in the drapery of some of his Madonnas, for
example on the border of the mantle and robe of the enthroned Madonna of
the Brera altarpiece, we are able to decipher fragments of the most beautiful
of the prayers and hymns which the Church has dedicated to the Virgin, such
as : Regina Coeli laetare, etc., Ave Maris stclla, etc., and the antiphon-.
Diffusa est gratia, etc.
A picture derived from the
Berenson Madonna, but far more elaborate in
composition and much later in date, is the Virgin and Child lately in the
collection of Sir Martin Conway and now in that of Mr. J. G. Johnson, of
Philadelphia. It represents, like the Settignano picture, a seated figure of
the Madonna holding the Infant Saviour to her breast. In the background is
a hanging which fills three-quarters of the picture, and on the right a window
opening, through which a landscape is seen. In general lines this later
version follows its prototype closely. The hands are very similar in outward
character and pose, though inferior in feeling and coarser in drawing, as will
be seen on comparing the illustrations of the two pictures, in which the close
connection and obvious differences between these two works are manifest.
The naivete and freshness which imparted so much charm to the Settignano
panel appear to us to have vanished from this later and more commonplace
^
See chap. v.