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 
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