but in a more abundant measure, the pleasures which he had tasted in this world. The Christian sculptor, on the other hand, taught by his religion that when the corruptible body was laid in the grave, the spirit returned to God who gave it, made the marble effigy upon the tomb as much like the dead body which lay within it as possible. Each had a reason for the course which he adopted, whereas we can find none for the senseless innovation of Sansavino, by which he neither imitated life nor the majestic repose and impressive stillness of death.' (Vol. i. p. 243.)

This attempt to commemorate a dead cardinal by representing him asleep, with his mitre and vestments on in the attitude of a banqueting Roman, is a type of that compromise with paganism which destroyed all Christian sculpture, and so the very art of sculpture itself. When artists took to paganism for the expression of Christian sentiment, they abandoned their hold upon our sympathy; and as religious feeling is stronger than a taste for archæology, or an appreciation of mere beauty, so in the treatment of sacred subjects, that art which is the true exponent of Christianity will affect our hearts and minds when the admiration of all other artistic qualities has grown cold.

Of Jacopo Sansavino, Andrea's pupil, it is difficult for any one who has felt the fascination of Venice to speak with anything but praise :

'No man has ever left his impress so strongly upon a city as Sansavino has upon Venice; turn where we will, some church or palace meets the eye which owes its existence to him; it is, therefore, much to be regretted that his style, with all its richness and picturesqueness, was not purer, and that so much genius should have produced works which were fruitful of evil to the rising generation.' (Vol. i. p. 253.)

We now come to Michael Angelo, whose life has been written over and over again, but never in such a manner as to give complete satisfaction. He was at once an architect, a painter, a sculptor, a writer, and even an engineer; he lived with the most remarkable persons of a period of great men, and his life and fortunes were intimately connected with passing political events. A complete history of that life must therefore be an artistic, literary, biographical, and historical work, and the difficulty of giving a distinct account of the different phases of so complex a man, while preserving a continuous and intelligible narrative properly illustrated by notices of his contemporaries, is such that we can hardly wonder at the want of success which has hitherto attended every Life of Michael Angelo.'

That by Mr. Harford, which was noticed in this Review a few years ago, is perhaps in some respects the best that has

yet been written, and this position it will certainly not be required to yield to the life by Herman Grimm, a translation of which by Miss Bunnett has just appeared. As this work has been taken from the German without being put into English, we fear that its style will effectually prevent any one from reading it steadily through, while the absence of either index or table of contents deprives it of all value as a book of reference. The narrative is confused, and worse confounded by constant digressions; the descriptions are such as we could expect from the pen of an author endowed with a lively imagination, a strong sense of the sublime and none of the ridiculous; the criticisms appear to have been formed more from these descriptions than from an examination of the things described. Altogether the work presents the most extraordinary contrasts to the simplicity, clearness, and good judgment which are the characteristics of Mr. Perkins. His account of Michael Angelo is, indeed, almost exclusively confined to the consideration of his works as a sculptor, although it also contains sufficient notices of his life and other productions to make it an interesting artistic biography. We can hardly admit his assertion to be true, that Michael Angelo was greater in sculpture than in any other of the arts he practised, and we think there are but few good judges who would place the tombs of the Medici or the Pietà at St. Peter's above the paintings of the Sistine ceiling, either as works of art or proofs of genius; but as Mr. Perkins is a writer upon sculpture, he may fairly be allowed some partiality for his own subject.

In his youth (that is before he was twenty-four years old, for artistically speaking he never was young), Michael Angelo executed pagan works in imitation of the antique, one of which, intended as a deception, was stained to look like old marble, sent to Rome to be buried and discovered,' and in due course succeeded in deceiving the Cardinal di S. Giorgio, who, though he returned the statue, upon finding out the trick, to the agent from whom he had bought it, was so much struck with its cleverness that he sent to Florence to discover its author and invite him to Rome. Michael Angelo went, and it was then and there that he executed the famous Pietà for the French Ambassador, who wished to leave behind him a worthy memorial of his residence at Rome. It is now unfortunately placed in a very bad light, and much of the beauty of its forms is therefore concealed; but its dignity, its purity of style, and deep religious sentiment, every one can see and appreciate, and it is for these qualities that we may place it above all his Christian works. Compare with it the statue of our Lord in the church of

Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It is like an academy study converted into a Christ. Its modelling and display of anatomical knowledge may be worthy of all praise, but affectation and want of dignity are faults which can never be forgiven in a work of religious art. The Moses at S. Pietro in Vincoli has certainly no want of dignity, and is not devoid of religious sentiment; but it impresses one chiefly with the idea of a magnificent giant or Jupiter, and has an expression of ferocity which should hardly be the characteristic of the great ruler who so often saved the Israelites by his prayers from the summary vengeance of the Almighty.

Mr. Perkins considers that

'its vagueness of meaning, which has so often been called a defect, is in one sense a proof of power in the sculptor; since though neither receiving nor teaching the law, Moses impresses us as the mighty leader of a chosen people, worthy to carry out the decrees of the Most High.' (Vol. ii. p. 41.)

The tombs of the Medici, although in some respects the grandest works of the Renaissance, are too pagan in sentiment, or rather one should perhaps say, too far devoid of Christian feeling, to be received as models for monumental sculpture. In them, as in almost all his works, Michael Angelo is to be admired and wondered at, but not imitated. He was a magnificent exception to all rules of art, and those who will not admit that as such he proved their truth, may at any rate allow, when considering the vicious works of his followers, that he was a most dangerous guide.

6

One defeet of the statues of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, of which we think but little now, is the want of personal likeness to the originals, which has, according to Grimm, led to confusion as to the persons intended to be portrayed, and eventually to an exchange of names. The Thinker' who meditates, his head upon his hand,' is, and has been even from the time of Vasari, called Lorenzo, while the Roman warrior is always supposed to be the statue of his uncle Giuliano. But if the figures are portraits even of the characters of these men, M. Grimm must be right in asserting that they are now wrongly named. Giuliano was a melancholy man of literary tastes who hated public affairs, and eventually retired to a convent where he was poisoned, as was supposed by Lorenzo. Lorenzo was a brave and ambitious man, who led in person the attack on Monteleone, when he took the Duchy of Urbino which had been given him by the Pope from the reigning Duke. A comparison of these facts with the statues, and the want of any portrait to confirm the popular nomenclature, is sufficient to satisfy us of the

justice of M. Grimm's proposed change of names; but for the benefit of hardened sceptics we will add the following passage as translated by Miss Bunnett:

"That which stamps the figure of the Duke of Urbino-which is as it were its token-is the throat rising from the square richly ornamented opening of the coat of mail which fits closely to the breast and shoulders-power and pride are expressed in its movement. Once more casting a glance at the entire figure, we see all the good and the noble that lay in Lorenzo's character-his valour, his hope of conquering the Italian States into a kingdom for himself-this statue contains it all; and whoever contemplates it, and afterwards reflects upon the man himself in his various fates, will most easily solve the question, What is to be understood by idealizing a person? An artist who wishes to produce the ideal of a man, takes hold of the enduring value he possesses, adds to it what he himself is as a man and an artist, and out of this founds a new creation.' (Vol. i. p. 448.)

This prescription for ideal creations has not much to do perhaps with the question as to the identity of Lorenzo de' Medici's statue, but we have copied it for the use of our artistic readers, and as a specimen of the style in which the book is written.

Having given M. Grimm's remarks on the Warrior,' we trust that the numerous admirers of the Thinker' will not accuse us of any disrespect to the finest statue of modern times, if we quote part of what he has said in its praise:

'M. Angelo, whose overflowing nature sought an outlet in one manner or another in each of his works, knew how, in representing repose, to elevate it into a state of infinite duration, just in the same way as he understood how to raise the action of a figure into bursting vehemence. The sibyls and prophets exhibit this in his paintings, Giuliano's statue in his sculptures. Yet the figure of the Duke de Nemours expresses something utterly different to the colossal men and women of the Sistine Chapel. There investigating reflection was represented, every thought flowing towards one point, the highest contemplative work; in Giuliano the thoughts are divided, the mind is absorbed in an indefinite feeling just as if he intended to show that death was a deliverance for him from long sad sickness. He sits as if he had gradually turned to stone.' (Vol. i. p. 450.)

It is impossible to read these observations of our German author without a feeling of regret that Michael Angelo had not the opportunity of making a statue of Lord Burleigh, and expressing the full meaning of his celebrated nod in marble. But we are joking in church; let us return to Mr. Perkins and be serious. He has not succeeded in suggesting any new or reasonable interpretation of the figures of Night and DayAurora and Twilight, which recline upon the sarcophagi. The

explanation that Day and Night were intended to 'typify the 'glory of Giuliano limited only by the confines of the earth,' does not appear to satisfy Mr. Perkins, and is not likely to succeed better with anyone else. The suggestion that the four statues are emblematic of the brevity of human life which is marked by their rapidly succeeding divisions' is better, and is probably the best that those who seek to know their meaning are likely to get. M. Grimm has not failed to improve the occasion, but we will spare our readers his remarks. In truth, these statues are examples of that grand vagueness which characterises many of Michael Angelo's finest works. Like a prophet he brought forth things inspired, majestic, and terrible, which were but half understood by those to whom he addressed them, and which he could not have himself explained. His works, if we may be allowed without the charge of irreverence to make the comparison, resemble some of those passages in the poetical books of the Old Testament which strike us by their grandeur and fill our imagination with sublime ideas, but to which we affix no precise meaning. The beauties, however, of vague inspirations cannot be imitated; such imitations are extravagant inanities. Michael Angelo was too great not to be admired, and too much admired not to be followed; but as his flight was too lofty for other mortals, the efforts of his imitators were ridiculous, and their works make us feel, as Mr. Perkins says, that art paid dearly for Michael Angelo.' That it would have been better for sculpture had he never lived may, however, be doubted. He was not the corrupter of a pure age-it was not he that sowed the tares; many of them had grown old before he appeared; but he taught men to despise the wheat, and on his authority they reared crops

of weeds.

In taking leave of Michael Angelo as a sculptor, let us remind our readers that the Kensington Museum possesses a Cupid executed by him for Jacopo Galli, a Roman banker, when he was about twenty-four years old, and which is considered to be one of his best imitations of the antique. It contains also a number of his models in wax which belonged to the Gherardini collection, and are of great interest. Raphael must not be denied a place amongst the sculptors of this period, though his works are few in number and somewhat doubtful; but we know that he sculptured a young boy in marble which is supposed to be the figure now at Down Hill in Ireland. Also, that he designed and superintended the execution of the Jonah in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo at Rome. Its superiority to the Elias in the same church, which he may have.