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. 1, and Rivista Moderna, 
1903, P- 7 1 - Signora Agresti is also the author of an interesting 
appreciation of Costa in the Studio for 1903. 
2 77 
