I 

 GIOVANNI COSTA 



peasants of Latin race agree with the noble lines of 

 the landscape and the sombre tints of sky and forest, 

 and no one can wonder at the admiration which the 

 Roman master's painting excited in the breast of 

 Corot and his brother-artists when it was exhibited 

 at Paris in 1862. Many years afterwards it was 

 bought by the Italian Government, and now hangs 

 in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. 

 In this and all the works of the same period we note 

 the subtle skill with which the painter renders the 

 different effects of the Italian atmosphere, the brilliant 

 clearness of tramontana weather, the flying dust that 

 fills the air when the sirocco blows, the parched look 

 of the sandy shores and motionless sleep of the waves 

 on a sultry day, or the wet grey mists muffling the 

 hills after a rainy night. 



During the seven years when he lived in the Cam- 

 pagna Costa formed some of his most lasting friend- 

 ships with foreign artists, many of whom joined him 

 in his outdoor studies. Among these were Franz 

 Lenbach, the great German portrait-painter ; Arnold 

 Bocklin, whose mystic temperament and passion for 

 beauty found a quick response in Costa's soul ; Cor- 

 nelius and Overbeck, whose sincerity and reverent 

 love for the old masters he admired if he could not 

 share their wish to recall a vanished past. Then, too, 



George Mason joined him in his wanderings, and young 



283 



