Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

XLI.

THETIS.

Thetis on a sea-horse-the face far from idealism seems to be a real face of much energy and goodness. She sits on the curved back of the monster, and holds in one hand something like a sponge, in the other the ears of the head of the sharp beast.'

XLII.

HYGIEIA.

An Hygieia with a serpent. A resemblance of the famous Dis-a copy. The forms are soft and flowing but not the most perfect proportion. The head and countenance is of great beauty. There is the serene sweetness of expectation, the gathered firm and yet the calm and gentle lip.

XLIII.

JUPITER.

A Jupiter in every respect of a very ordinary character.

XLIV.

A MINERVA.

Evidently a production of very great antiquity.

1 It was doubtless intended to erase some words here.

XLV.

A JUNO.1

A statue of great merit. The countenance expresses a stern and unquestioned severity of dominion, with a certain sadness. The lips are beautiful-susceptible of expressing scorn-but not without sweetness in their beauty. Fine lips are never wholly bad, and never belong to the expression of emotions completely selfishlips being the seat of imagination. The drapery is finely conceived, and the manner in which the act of throwing back one leg is expressed in the diverging folds of the drapery of the left breast, fading in bold yet graduated lines into a skirt of it which descends from the right shoulder is admirably imagined.

XLVI.

A WOUNDED SOLDIER.

An unknown figure. His arms are folded within his mantle. His countenance which may be a portrait is sad but gentle.

XLVII.

A YOUTH.

A youth playing on a lyre-one arm and leg is a restoration and there is no appearance of the head or arm belonging to it. The body and the right leg are of the most consummate beauty. It may or may not be an Apollo.

1 Medwin first gave this Note in The Athenæum for the 22nd of September, 1832. Like the others 80 given, it was reprinted in The Shelley Papers and Essays, Letters

&c.

2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit

in their beauty, and begin the next sentence thus-With fine lips a person is.

3 In previous editions, wholly.

4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read, a skirt, as it descends from the left shoulder.

XLVIII.

THE FIGURE OF A YOUTH SAID TO BE APOLLO.

It was difficult to conceive anything more delicately beautiful than the Ganymede; but the spirit-like lightness, the softness, the flowing perfection of these forms, surpass it. The countenance though exquisite lovely and gentle is not divine. There is a womanish vivacity of winning yet passive happiness and yet a boyish inexperience exceedingly delightful. Through the limbs there seems to flow a spirit of life which gives them lightness. Nothing can be more perfectly lovely than the legs and the union of the feet with the ancles, and the fading away of the lines of the feet to the delicate extremities. It is like a spirit even in dreams. The neck is long yet full and sustains the head with its profuse and knotted hair as if it needed no sustaining.

XLIX.

AN ESCULAPIUS.

A Statue of Esculapius-the same as in the Borghese Gardens in the temple there.

L.

AN ESCULAPIUS.

A Statue of Esculapius far superior. It is leaning forward upon a knotty staff imbarked and circled by a viper, with a bundle of plants in one hand and the other with the forefinger in an attitude of instruction. The majestic head, its thick beard and profuse hair bound

by a fillet leans forward, and the gentle smile of its benevolent lips seems a commentary on his instructions. The upper part of the figure with the exception of the right shoulder is naked, but the rest to the feet is involved in drapery, whose folds flow from the point where the staff confines them sustaining the left arm.

LI.

OLINTHUS

(as they call a youth seated). Another of those sweet and gentle figures of adolescent youth in which the Greeks. delighted.

LII.

MARCUS AURELIUS.

A Statue of Marcus Aurelius which is rather without faults than with beauties.

[blocks in formation]

LV.

A MUSE.

A most hideous thing they call a Muse-evidently the production of some barbarian and of a barbarous age.

LVI.

AN OLD CUIRASS

with all the frogs and fringe complete-a fine piece of antique dandyism.

LVII.

A BACCHUS BY MICHAEL ANGELO,1

The countenance of this figure is the most revolting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the Deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. On the other hand, considered merely as a piece of workmanship, it has great merits. The arms are executed in the most perfect and manly beauty; the body is conceived with great energy,' and the lines which describe

So headed in the Note-book, but Michael Angelo's Bacchus in former editions.

2 In former editions, only.

3 Not in a style of the most perfect, &c., as in previous editions.

In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's

editions we read from here as follows-and the manner in which the lines mingle into each other, of the highest boldness and truth. It wants unity as a work of art as a representation of Bacchus it wants everything.

« AnteriorContinuar »