Word: berenson
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...poetical criterion which has directed Berenson's personal vision; all the more unique for an "expert," (the quotation marks are his own), to say of his ideal, "IT is incapable of analysis, requires no explanations and no apology, is self-evident and right. ... One may sing about it but not discuss it. IT is the most immediate and mystical...
...living room hangs a superb Sassetta tryptich, one which Berenson found in an antique shop moments before its intended destruction for wood panels. It overlooks a deeply lit sanctum of well worn opulence. A recording of Verdi's Requiem rested upon one of two pianos. Copies of The Reporter and other magazines of contemporary interest covered a large center table. Aesthetics and history have both impassioned B.B., whose thirst for knowledge has been watered by immense energy. But Berenson's soul is of a renaissance tint and its tempo, plus, of course, the weight of his convictions...
Strange that this condemnation includes modern art as well as modern life; strange, but in a way logical. For Berenson, connoisseur and aesthete that he is, represents a given area of taste, a given vintage. His taste reflects the refined tradition of Hellenism, of Classical proportion. In this way, Berenson looks dubiously upon both primitive art and on the creations of the modern idiom, the more naive frescoes of the twelfth century as the sophisticated manner of the modern French. Yet, what Berenson loves he loves well and completely. To the sphere of Athenian refinement, of what he calls "tactile...
Would that there were more time at I Tatti. A whirlwind tour of the museum Berenson, for it is literally that, doesn't suffice even for a first look. But Berenson would be awaiting his visitors at Casa al Dono. Time remained only for a few photographs. The Tuscan light, often over-brilliant, favors subjects admirably. A deep grey light of great clarity pronounced the rich earth colors of the Sassetta-like hills with their patterned bushes. The occasional pieces of white sculpture became phantasmal objects in their arbors of thick foliage. The tall veridian poplars of Piero della Francesa...
...Berenson's wish that all this1