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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
sometimes ) the face is not one of high devotedness , bearing to inflict an evil for the achievement of a greater good . Is it for the gratification of private vengeance ? He does not seem as if' listening to the rush of blood from his victims , as the Arab listens for the gush of water in the desert . ' His face is that of an astrologer ,
gazing on the stars in a night of eastern beauty , forgetting to write his superstitions on their bright brows , while they are inscribing their poetry upon his soul . There is a fine piece of bypainting in the black at his feet ; who , though spurned and derided as the inferior nature , holds up his hand a witness against the deed of blood , and screens his face from the horror of the scene
below . Good bye to murders ; but not to Horace Vernet . Welcome again and again to his delectable picture of ' Raphael and Michael Angelo in the Vatican . '• It is perfect satisfaction : we could gaze and gaze , filling the heart through the eyes with mind-approving enjoyment . The material how simple ! What a world of moral , intellectual , and physical beauty created out o *
it ! It is recorded in Q . de Quincy ' s life of Raphael , that one day while standing , the centre of a group of worshippers , on the steps of the Vatican , he was accosted thus by Michael Angelo , who was on the way to his great picture : ' Why , you stand encircled by a suite numerous as a general's . ' c And you go to your Last Judgment alone like the hangman' was the retort . So much for
the text ; what is Vernet ' s comment ? Where shall we begin ? how one longs to give it at once with one stroke of the pen , that all who read might have that single impression , —emotion , —which it gives when first looked upon . How one fears to injure it . Oh for faces , forms , and colours , instead of stiff pen , glaring paper , and black ink . Give bountifully of your imagination , good
reader , and you will find ample payment in a mere simple detail of objects . On the left is Michael Angelo descending the steps , laden with materials for his work . ( ' How very unlike a gentleman ! ' Who says that ? Some one who would vouch for Sir Thomas Lawrence never having carried a parcel . Pshaw !) He holds in his arms a ponderous clasped volume , on which is placed
a lay figure , sundry weapons , his pallet , colour &c . His costume is simple , something between artist and workman , of one who was both sculptor and painter . His figure manly , his forehead noble , with the hair slightly grey , hinting- his middle age . His fine , clear , intellectual eyes are upturned toward the place where his rival is standing . What rival ? His lofty spirit
knows nothing of rivalry . The frank , almost playful expression about the mouth , as he utters his good-humoured raillery ; his devotion to his art manifest by his independence on external appearance ^ show plainly that he would hail genius wherever it might be found , and at the same time prevent its being injured by any admixture with vanity . Behind him is a group of peasants , subjects , it would seem , waiting for Raphael ' s pencil to make them
Untitled Article
The Luxembourg . 57
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 57, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/59/
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