Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of the strength of Michael Angelo; at the same time it may still be a doubt, how far their ornamental elegance would be an advantageous addition to his grandeur. But if there is any manner of painting which may be said to unite kindly with his style, it is that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his colours are left on the canvass, appears to proceed (as far as that goes) from a congenial mind, equally disdainful of vulgar criticism.

Michael Angelo's strength thus qualified, and made more palatable to the general taste, reminds me of an observation which I heard a learned critic make, when it was incidentally remarked, that our translation of Homer, however excellent, did not convey the character, nor had the grand air of the original. He replied, that if Pope had not clothed the naked majesty of Homer with the graces and elegancies of modern fashions, though the real dignity of Homer was degraded by such a dress, his translation would not have met with such a favourable reception, and he must have been contented with fewer readers.

7 Dr. Johnson.

8

8 What Johnson has recorded respecting Pope's translation, is worth transcribing. In his life of Pope, he says: "It has been objected by some who wish to be numbered among the sons of learning, that Pope's version of Homer, is not Homerical; that it exhibits no resemblance of the original and characteristic manner of the Father of Poetry; as it wants his awful simplicity, his artless grandeur, his unaffected majesty. This cannot be totally denied, but it must be remembered, that necessitas quod cogit defendit: that may be lawfully done which cannot be forborne. Time and place will always enforce regard. In estimating this translation, consideration must be had of the nature of our language, the form of our metre, and, above all, of the change which two thousand years have made in the modes of life and the habits of thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the same general fabric with that of Homer, in verses of the same measure, and in an age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years; yet he found, even then, the state of the world so much altered, and the demand for elegance so much increased, that mere nature would be endured no longer. And, perhaps, in the multitude of borrowed passages, very few can be shewn which he has not embellished. To a thousand cavils, one answer is sufficient: the purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing, must be blown aside. Pope wrote for his own age and his own nation he knew that it was necessary to colour the images and point the sentiments of his author; he, therefore, made him graceful, but lost him some of his sublimity."

If there be that parity of reasoning between poetry and painting, we may be able to define more clearly, and with greater certainty, the positive and relative distance that Michael Angelo

LIS

[merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic]

Many of the Flemish painters, who studied at Rome in that great era of our art, such as Francis Floris, Hemskerk, Michael Coxis, Jerom Cock, and others, returned to their own country with as much of this grandeur as they could carry. But like seeds falling on a soil not prepared or adapted to their nature, the manner of Michael Angelo thrived but little with them; perhaps, however, they contributed to prepare the way for that free, unconstrained, and liberal outline, which was afterwards introduced by Rubens, through the medium of the Venetian painters.

The grandeur of style has been in different degrees disseminated over all Europe. Some caught it by living at the time, and coming into contact with the original author, whilst others received it at second hand; and being every where adopted, it has totally changed the whole taste and style of design, if there could be said to be any style before his time. Our art, in consequence, now assumes a rank to which it could never have dared to aspire, if Michael Angelo had not discovered to the world the hidden powers which it possessed. possessed. Without his assistance we never

and Raffaelle, the Homer and Virgil of painting, hold with reference to each other. This grandeur of style, so peculiar to Michael Angelo, does not depend so much upon the fulness and largeness of the form, nor the simple personification of the most sublime ideas, nor dignifying Nature by the absence of detail and familiar resemblance; but a compound of all these requisites. In the works of Michael Angelo, this largeness of style never engenders heaviness nor vulgarity; but from the smallness of the extremities, the precision with which the joints are defined, the length of limb, and elasticity of attitude, a race of beings start into life, freed from the sensual grossness which clings to general Nature, and binds our thoughts to earth. In translating many of those qualities into his own works, Raffaelle has recast them in a mould more consonant to truth, as regard the characters he represents, which are less poetical; he has taken sufficient to elevate them, without removing them from off the stage of life. In his later compositions, such as his Cartoons, we find the style of Michael Angelo growing upon him; and it may be traced in the Ananias, and the adjoining figures; in the whole of the "Miraculous Draught of Fishes;" in the Elymas, and the heads near him; and in the beggars and children in the "Cartoon of the Beautiful Gate." The combination of this style with greater fascination of colour has been exemplified in several of the works of Titian, such as his "Murder of Abel," his "Abraham Offering up Isaac," and other subjects of this class, and seems to demand a corresponding breadth of treatment; delicacy in the lights to give rotundity; and flatness and strength in the dark portions, to give bulk and firmness. The Ganymede, in the National Gallery, shews us the application of these qualities.

could have been convinced, that painting was capable of producing an adequate representation of the persons and actions of the heroes of the Iliad.

I would ask any man qualified to judge of such works, whether he can look with indifference at the personification of the Supreme Being in the centre of the Capella Sestina, or the figures of the Sybils which surround that chapel, to which we may add the Statue of Moses; and whether the same sensations are not excited by those works, as what he may remember to have felt from the most sublime passages of Homer? I mention those figures more particularly, as they come nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demi-gods, and heroes; those sybils and prophets being a kind of intermediate beings between men and angels. Though instances may be produced in the works of other painters, which may justly stand in competition with those I have mentioned, such as the Isaiah, and the Vision of Ezekiel, by Raffaelle, the St. Mark of Frate Bartolomeo, and many others; yet these, it must be allowed, are inventions so much in Michael Angelo's manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered as so many rays, which discover manifestly the centre from whence they emanated.

The sublime in painting, as in poetry, so overpowers, and takes such a possession of the whole mind, that no room is left for attention to minute criticism. The little elegancies of art in the presence of these great ideas thus greatly expressed, lose all their value, and are, for the instant at least, felt to be unworthy of our notice. The correct judgment, the purity of taste, which characterise Raffaelle, the exquisite grace of Correggio and Parmegiano, all disappear before them.

That Michael Angelo was capricious in his inventions, cannot be denied; and this may make some circumspection necessary in studying his works; for though they appear to become him, an imitation of them is always dangerous, and will prove sometimes ridiculous. " Within that circle none durst walk but he." To me, I confess, his caprice does not lower the estimation of his genius, even though it is sometimes, I

« AnteriorContinuar »