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

Chap. I. CONNECTION WITH THE SCHOOL OF VERONA 7
But Vincenzo was never a servile imitator ;
he assimilated, from those
who taught him, what appealed to him most ; the charming poetic incidents
so often met with in his compositions seem like an echo of early Veronese
motives, yet his own strong individuality is always dominant in his work.
In this, his earliest known painting, built on a Veronese foundation, his
characteristic manner of expression is present everywhere, so that it would
be impossible to ascribe it to any other master. The finished beauty and
refinement of the slender ethereal figures in the Colonna picture, the lighthearted
gaiety, the dainty grace and fanciful motives of the garden at Verona,
with its myriads of angels and birds flitting among the roses, are here cast in
a more homely mould and treated in a more sober and serious spirit,
which, if
more akin to earth than the Paradise of the Veronese masters, is infinitely
charming in its way. The strongly built wattle fence here replaces the rosecovered
bower ;
the types have already the solid forms so eminently characteristic
of Foppa throughout his life ; the angel musician on the left, the little
figure on the right turning the pages of a book for its two companions (an
idea no doubt borrowed from a similar incident in the Verona picture), are
both so entirely characteristic of the Brescian master as to be tantamount to a
signature ;
while the third angel of the group shows again a connection with
the school of Verona as exemplified more especially in the fresco at Illasi.
The flesh painting is peculiarly distinctive of Foppa with its all-pervading
silvery greyness of tone, a quality which proved so attractive to his followers
that it became the distinguishing feature of the Lombard school ; and among
minor details eminently characteristic of the master in this picture may be
noted the drawing of the eyelids and of the eye-sockets,
the opaque quality
of the iris, the form of the lips, and the treatment of the hair—characteristics
which are always found in a more or less marked degree in his works, and
recur also in those of many of his pupils and imitators.
In colour, it must be admitted, Foppa's panel has little in common with
Verona. From Stefano's Adoration in the Brera, for instance, with its exquisitely
refined harmonies and pearly tones, it is widely removed ;
but here
again Vincenzo strikes out a line of his own and gives us a colour scheme of
wonderful force and brilliancy, in which the many-hued wings of the angels,
the vivid scarlet, golden red, and deep green of the draperies interspersed
with more delicate shades of pink and grey-blue, are combined with great
originality and skill ; the whole is tempered by the sober tone of the background,
and by the dark trees on the right, which stand like sentinels against
the golden sky, as though their office and purpose were to keep perpetual
watch at the gate of Paradise.*
^
The trees on the left are a recent addition.