MONTICELLI, Adolphe, French painter: b. Marseilles, 1824; d. Mar seilles, 1886. He made a short stay in Paris and contributed to the Salon; but, not meet ing with success, returned to his dative town, where he died poor, ignored and insane. Un appreciated, he sold his pictures in cafés for 10 or 20 francs; to-day they bring large sums. Collectors have made fortunes out of the small canvases which have given Monticelli posthu mous fame. His 'Court of the Princess' is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. "Monti celli," writes a French critic, "painted land scapes, romantic scenes, still life and fetes qalantes in the style of Watteau. One cannot imagine a more inspired sense of color than shown by his works, which seem to be painted with powdered jewels, with powerful harmony, and beyond all else with an unheard of deli cacy in the perception of fine shades. There are tones which nobody had ever invented be fore, and a richness, a profusion, a subtlety which almost vie with the resources of music. The fairyland atmosphere of Monticelli's pic tures surrounds a very firm drawing of charm ing style; but, to use the words of the artist himself, in the canvases the objects are the decoration, the touches are the scales and the light is the tenor." Monticelli has created for
himself an entirely, .personal technique, which can only be compared with that of Turner. He painted with a brush so full, fat and rich that some of the details are often modeled in relief, in a substance as precious as enamels, jewels, ceramics — a substance which is a de light in itself. Every picture by Monticelli aroused astonishment. Constructed upon one color, as upon a musical theme, a picture by Monticelli rises to an intensity which one would have thought impossible. His pictures are magnificent bouquets, bursts of joy and color, where nothing is ever crude and where everything is ruled by a supreme sense of har mony? Consult 'biographies by Faure (Paris 1908) ; Gouirand (Paris 1900).