represented San Giovanni preaching to the people; the attitude of the Saint is full of power, his person is attenuated ag was proper to the life which he led; the air of the head and the expression of the countenance give evidence of inspiration and of the contemplative habits of his life. The variety and animation to be observed in the looks of his hearers are equally remarkable and admirable, some are standing as in amazement, and all are full of emotion as they receive: those new tidings and listen to a doctrine so remarkable, but which had never before been propounded to them.
But still more wonderfully was the genius of this master rendered manifest in the picture wherein he represented San Giovanni baptizing[1] a vast concourse of people in the river; some of these figures are divesting themselves of their clothing, others are in the act of receiving the sacred rite; some wait unclothed until the saint shall have finished baptizing those who have gone before them, but in the attitudes of all, the utmost eagerness is apparent, and each one gives evidence of the earnest desire he feels, as he hastens forward to be washed from his sins. ‘The whole of these figures, moreover, are so admirably depicted in the before-mentioned chiaro-scuro, that they have all the appearance of the most animated and life-like statues in marble.
But I will not omit to mention, that while Andrea was. occupied with these and other pictures, there came out numerous engravings, executed on copper, by Albert Diirer, and that Andrea availed himself of these works, copying certain figures from them, and adapting them to his own purposes,[2] a circumstance which has caused some to believe, not that it is wrong to avail one’s self dexterously of the meritorious performances of others, but that Andrea was not endowed with any great power of invention.[3]
Now it happened at this time, that Baccio Bandinelli,
- ↑ See Reumont, as before cited, for details respecting these pictures; ee first of which has been engraved by Langermayr, the second by Emilio Lapi.
- ↑ Bottari remarks that he can discover but one figure borrowed by Andrea from Albert Direr, in all the works of the former; but the German commentator, Förster, points out two in the picture of St. John preaching to the people, as taken from the engravings of Albert,
- ↑ The cartoons for the Preaching and the Baptism are still to be seen painted in oil in the Rinuccini Gallery in Florence.
