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Artist J.M.W. Turner, RA. The Engravings. Perhaps the most famous English Romantic landscape artist. Turner
products many engravings and was very hands-on in there progress to printings.
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The Birdcage
A SCENE FROM BOCCACCIO.
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The birdcage is visible enough—but why a scene from Boccaccio? No doubt it is intended to represent that gay and noble party,
full of wit but deficient in all noble feeling, whom Boccaccio represents as withdrawing to a castle to enjoy themselves and tell
questionable
stories, while their less fortunate fellow-creatures were obliged to stay in the city and die of the plague. But if this be allowed
we must ask, “Why the Birdcage ?“ as no story of the many stories in the Decameron is known by that title. But Turner was not
particular where mere facts were concerned, and he has not been particular enough in this picture about such facts as the way in.
which human members are joined together, or the general proportion borne by one to the other, to make this picture interesting,
except as a specimen of what an exceedingly bad picture he could paint if he tried. In style it is more like Watteau than any other
painter. There - is a general air of festivity about the scene, and the castle and its glades would make the place a very appropriate
one for an al fresco entertainment, but there is not much. more to be said for the picture. |
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