PISANELLO TO CIMA DA CONEGLIANO 



He points out that "the horse in Italian art before 

 this time was always the destrier ; this horse, peculiar 

 for its small, compact build, is not indeed the Arab 

 horse, but it is the horse (possibly a descendant of 

 the Greek horse, of which we are here forcibly re- 

 minded) which is to be found to this day in the 

 uplands and mountainous districts of Turkey," and 

 speaks of one in Gentile Bellini's Adoration of the Magi 

 (Venice, Lady Layard's collection), " which may almost 

 have been the oriorinal of St. Paul's horse here." ^ 



A very good example of Giovanni's attitude to 

 external nature is to be seen in the National Gallery. 

 "You are to be interested," says Ruskin, "in the living 

 creatures, not in what is happening to them," and in the 

 Death of St. Peter Martyr it is evidently the living 

 creatures other than human which have a large share 

 of his interest. The dog, the lamb, the goat, the cattle, 

 the young donkey with large downy head, standing 

 luxuriously half asleep in the shade of the coppice ; 

 the brown bird of the flycatcher type perching on a 

 twig above the cartellino ; all these go to make up 

 that abounding unobtrusive life of the country which 

 is the background for the joys, the sorrows, and the 

 evil passions of men.^ 



^ Giovanni Bellini^ 1899, pp. 30-31. 



* " Celle qu'on essaierait de trouver dans I'indifiference, ou meme le defi 

 injurieux que la nature semble opposer parfois k nos sentiments, serait bien 

 subtile pour cette epoque." — Emile Michel, Les Maitres du Paysage^ p. 14. 



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