The school of painting (Il Liceo della Pittura)
Pietro Testa Italian
Publisher Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi Italian
Not on view
Pietro Testa was one of the most recondite artists of the seventeenth century. This technically ambitious and intellectually complex design articulates his ideas concerning the necessary balance and unity of theory and practice in art. The inscription on the scroll at left states, 'Theory by herself is chained with bonds, and Practice alone is blind in her liberty', each, then, is impaired and inadequate without the other. The operatic composition, which is closely based on Raphael's celebrated School of Athens fresco and includes an erudite cast of characters and personifications, elaborates aspects of this conceit and shows (at center) the steps by which theory and practice can be felicitously united.
For a copy of this print see 49.95.2325
