Download or read book Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo: his life and work written by Frederick Mortimer Clapp and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Jacopo Carucci Da Pontormo: His Life and Work If Mr. Clapp's book, instead of appearing in the century of Picasso, had appeared in that of Pontormo, there would have been prefatory sonnets written by friends who believed in the artist and in the author. Believing in both myself, I offer a kind of substitute in plain prose, for the author, who is an accomplished poet and therefore well able to write his own complimentary verses, evades the task. It is a significant fact that Mr. Clapp's first considerable publication on his favorite artist, Les Dessins de Pontormo, was written in French and published in Paris. Nor is it betraying confidence to tell that the present book in its trial stages existed in a French version. The fact that Mr. Clapp has to this extent assimilated the French language is interesting, but it is far more important to note that he has equally assimi lated certain solid merits and enlivening graces of French scholarship. I shudder when I think what a German or a Germanized American scholar would have made of the subject of Pontormo. In his solitary, experimental career, in the now elegiac, now tragic avour of his personal poetry, there was every opportunity and temptation for indulgence in the irre sponsible joys of sentimentalism. In the mere physical abun dance of new data, there was every incentive to shoot it all into one of those imposing academic rubbish heaps which in mere bulk are more impressive than real books, as they are of more portentous effect upon the benevolent commonalty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."