The school of painting (Il Liceo della Pittura)
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
For a copy of this print see 49.95.2325
Artwork Details
- Title: The school of painting (Il Liceo della Pittura)
- Artist: Pietro Testa (Italian, Lucca 1612–1650 Rome)
- Publisher: Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi (Italian, Rome 1627–1691 Rome)
- Date: ca. 1638
- Medium: Etching
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Juanita and Phillip Greenspan, in memory of their mothers, Ann Rose Tice and Clara Greenspan, 1996
- Object Number: 1996.507
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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