Scan 76
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 40. See the scan on archive.org.
1suggestions thrown out by his master's more rugged style of workmanship.
3Taking up the argument of the possibility of Joseph's working under the flag of some maker of importance in Cremona till the time of his supposed début as a master liutaro, we look round and about in vain for a possible or likely practitioner with and from whom he could have been helping and receiving instruction. His own style at the time—1725, and through the succeeding years—is so highly artistic, and the individuality so forcible, that any effort to fix upon any known maker of the same locality as at all likely to be his master shortly before that becomes futile. He was, in fact, at this period himself a leading light, influencing other makers near and far, who in turn reflected his grand qualities in their own works to the enhancement of their known reputation. The old hypothesis and statements so often referred to and repeated by writers, that Joseph Guarnerius was a pupil of Antonio Stradivari must thus necessarily crumble to pieces; no two makers could, in the manifestations of their artistic tendencies, ideas of proportion, and direction of line, be more opposed. Those who have even gone so far as to write of the resemblance of some of Joseph's violins to those of Antonio's, had better be left alone; there would be no profit attached to a contest concerning assertions in this direction, and in which there is so much oblique mental vision, if not total absence of artistic perception.
5A more reasonable view of the subject was taken by another writer, who, in the absence of any data of a reliable kind, went fairly to work upon the probabilities indicated by general appearance and workmanship.
7The conclusions arrived at were that the most likely teacher was his cousin, known to connoisseurs of the present day as Joseph filius Andrea, who, the writer stated, "is the only maker in whose productions we can find the strong similarity needed." To help this, the fact is referred to that Joseph filius was the "senior by many years."
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