THE DAILY PIC (#1385): This is a print of Apollo and Daphne etched by the Venetian Andrea Schiavone somewhere around 1538, and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’m writing about it today in honor of something that I simply know will thrill you readers as much as it thrilled me: I just heard that Schiavone is getting his first full-blown scholarly symposium, in Venice next spring.

I’m not sure why Schiavone has always been one of my favorite artists. I recognize that the attraction has roots in sheer, pig-headed esotericism. (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.)

But I also think that Schiavone has a devil-may care attitude that foreshadows modern geniuses. Most of his pictures are pretty lousy, anatomically – probably because he wasn’t capable of better. But does that stop him from making amazing images? Not a bit of it.

He turns lousiness into the soul of his art, and dares anyone to resist. (Metropolitan Museum, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926)

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