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

Chap. VIII. ALTARPIECE, VERSAILLES 211
certain marked divergencies from his manner which it is difficult to explain
satisfactorily.
In the first place, inscribed upon a marble step on the left we have
what is unusual in the works of our painter, his full name in capital letters,
the authenticity of which seems indisputable. On the step \ /in r/ov i
immediately over this signature kneels the abbot, who, to V IjNIvSiN
judge by the black habit which he wears, probably repre-
T^IX/S Pip.
sents St. Benedict, a figure strikingly characteristic of
C/^DnA r>
Foppa, but belonging, there can be no doubt, to his late
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period. The head is admirably modelled throughout and full of expression
and vigour ; ' compared with the Nicodemus of the Berlin Pieta and with the
saints in the Trivulzio Collection—types with which this head is intimately
associated— it shows a more developed technique and greater accomplishment
and knowledge in the disposition of light and shade than any of these
examples ;
extremely characteristic of Foppa also is the hand of the saint in
pose and drawing. The Madonna's head is connected in type with a much
earlier picture, the Virgin of the Berenson Collection, as well as with the
Madonna in the Savona altarpiece of 1490, and the hands are akin in feeling
to those in the last-named picture and in the Brera polyptych. The drawing
of the neck, the shape and contour of the face, the plastic modelling of the
features, the straight nose with sharp touches of light, are altogether in
Foppa's typical manner, and in the landscape behind these figures we have
the most distinct evidence of his hand. The hill-side where the sheep are
grazing is a development of the same motive in the National Gallery picture,
and the painting of the bushes and of the trees shows a close connection with
the treatment in that picture, in the background of the St. Sebastian of the
Castello, in that of the Pieta at Berlin, and in other works ; while in the
charming distance, with winding river and wooded hills, the master returns to
the impressions of his earlier period, as seen, for instance, in the background
of the Berlin Madonna. In all this part of the picture Foppa's authorship,
attested by the signature, is confirmed in every particular by internal evidence;
but turning to the other half of the work, we meet with types, forms, and
methods of painting which are strangely at variance with the Brescian
master's character ;
the pose of the angel musician on the right seems indeed
founded upon a figure in the Brera altarpiece, and the tone of colour in the
robe and the treatment of the folds of the drapery are very similar in both
pictures ;
in the three singing angels who hold an open book we are distantly
reminded of the composition of the group in the Paradise picture of the
^ The type derives from a model many years earlier in date—the St. Jerome in the
Bergamo Gallery.