Books › Antonio Stradivari, 1900 › scan 53
Scan 53
Antonio Stradivari, 1900
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1this part without much danger could have been done by an intelligent and experienced assistant. The cutting and finishing with the thin keen edged knife, however, must be his, the slightest shaving over the traced line or not quite up to it would be sufficient to impart a totally different character to the whole. There is no part of the violin in which the sum total of the native characteristics and ability are shown to such exactitude as the cutting of these all important and expressive openings. In those of Stradivari is to be seen the same firmness of purpose and strict curbing of the fancy from proceeding too far, or allowing stability to be over balanced by love of gracefulness, as seen in the designs of his eminent master. To allow no weak part to be perceptible; strength of line with sufficient grace, admirable proportion and balance, and yet withal sufficient expression of mobility and freedom from heaviness were each, seemingly in turn, given the best attention by the great genius of Cremona. It is not using extravagant language when they are termed the eyes of the violin, for it is to these that experienced connoissiers turn their attention at once when inspecting a violin of character newly placed before them. Cut by an Italian, cut by a Frenchman, by a German, by a nobody in particular or who understood nothing about it, are the thoughts arising in the mind. Each country has its peculiar and native rendering of every sound hole that was first designed in Italy. This tendency to impart their own national characteristics by each native workman, runs parallel with that in pictorial art in the transferring to various materials the impressions received after study of the original or animated reality. To many the sound holes of an Italian gem of the highest class are but sound holes that are more neatly done or prettier than usual. To others they will be the expression in that simple form of an exquisitely acute perception of what will excite pleasurable emotions with regard to delicately balanced proportions, graceful flow of line, and freedom from all appearance of effort. That there is much in little concerning this, is proved by the
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