GIOVANNI COSTA 



with the best traditions of Italian art. The very 

 technique that Costa employed was founded, as he 

 has told us, on a careful study of the Old Masters. 

 It was his practice, as Professor Angeli and Signora 

 Agresti have told us, 1 to sketch out the subject of his 

 picture in red monochrome, after which he laid in 

 the shadows in grey, and added the blues and greens 

 and browns, and finally the yellows and high lights. 

 As he tersely explained the process himself, " First 

 the fire, then the cinders, last of all the flame ! " In 

 the restraint and tranquillity of his style, in the 

 directness and sincerity of his work, in the sober 

 harmonies of his colouring, Costa's art has a certain 

 affinity with the old Tuscans and Umbrians whom he 

 loved so well. We can hang his landscapes on the same 

 wall as their works without striking a discordant note. 

 On the other hand, Costa is thoroughly modern 

 in the strong personal element that enters into his 

 art. His landscapes are no mere servile imitations 

 or photographic reproductions of the beauties of 

 Nature. " The brain," he often said, " must play 

 its part, the artist must make his own selection and 

 give us his own impressions, not a mere inventory of 

 separate facts ! " This is what we feel so strongly 



1 La Rassegna Internationale, 1901, p. i, and Rivista Moderna, 

 I 93. P- 7 1 - Signora Agresti is also the author of an interesting 

 appreciation of Costa in the Studio for 1903. 

 277 



