"North Italian Painters of the Renaissance"

Mr. W. R. Thayer St reviews below The North Italian Painters of the Renaissance," by B. Berenson '87, the well-known writer of history and criticism of Italian paintings.

THE NORTH ITALIAN PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE. By B. Berenson '87. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50.

This is the fourth and final volume of Mr. Berenson's stimulating studies of Italian painters of the Renaissance. In scope and method it resembles its predecessors, but it is more mature in judgment. Mr. Beronson has now formulated his philosophy of aesthetics, and has become so thoroughly penetrated with it, that he employs it with the ease of second nature to illustrate or explain a school, a painter, or a picture.

Men may be divided into two classes: first, those who are restless until they have referred every experience, and every bit of knowledge, to certain first principles; and, next, those who take life more classically, not because they lack first principles, but because they are more interested in the sweep and variety, even in the exceptions and caprice, than in the rigid formulation of life. Mr. Berenson belongs to the former class, and it is wonderful that a mind so acutely intellectual as his should choose for its special province the Fine Arts--the domain, that is, where Beauty and not Knowledge is sovereign. But although his forte is intellectual, Mr. Berenson succeeds in interpreting much of the sensuous charm of painting.

His survey of the North Italian Painters extends from Altichiero to Correggio, with a postscript on the Electics and the Teneloists. He analyzes with equal patience and skill the works of scores of lesser men. He seems to have overlooked nothing. And he brings all, down to the most modest specimen, into his system. Of chief interest to the American reader, who has not the pictures before him to refer to, are Mr. Berenson's generalizations--the pages in which he sets forth his main ideas, or sums up some really important master, like Montegna or Corrreggio. His remarks on the grotesque, on pettiness, on the modern passion for activity, and on the dangers of the antique--to mention only a few of the topics he touches upon by the way--are penetrating and suggestive, the product of a mind that forms its own opinions, and is ready to maintain them against all comers.

Finally, one must praise Mr. Berenson for the admirable clearness of his style. Not only can be command the memorable adjective on occasion, but he can state intricate aesthetic problems with refreshing simplicity and describe the attributes of a painting or its author with a precision which a scientist might envy and a quality which stamps it as literary. He is to be congratulated on having accomplished the most important work of its kind which has appeared in the last decade from the pen of any English speaking art critic.