552 



NOTES OF AN ARTIST. 



old hoary-headed prelate, is forced to the ground, on an open 

 highway, by a band of ruffians, who have already torn out his tongue. 

 One man holds the extracted organ of speech by a pair of pincers, 

 and is in the act of throwing it to a dog. Another wretch, who has 

 just performed the diabolical deed, grapples the saint with the grasp 

 of a fiend the bloody knife is between his lips the expression of 

 his face is more brutal than can be conceived it is inhuman, and 

 yet it strikes one as perfectly natural ; the lips are protruded from 

 the pressure of the knife the eyes throw out, upon the old victim, a 

 a look of devilish hatred. The robe of the martyr is exceedingly 

 rich ; it is gold, with a pictured border, in which touches of blue 

 and lake mingle with the yellow. A white horse unites the group 

 with the grey sky. This picture is painted thick with a furious ex- 

 ecution. The distribution of colour and the effect are miraculously 

 firm ; but the subject is revolting. 



Rubens seems to have painted the well-known " Taking down 

 from the Cross" with a very different feeling. It is an ex- 

 ception to his general gay spread of light, to which style he so 

 wantonly yielded himself. The sentiment of the subject has here 

 won his imagination a solemnity and depth of effect impress the 

 mind at once upon viewing this beautiful work of art. The dead 

 weight of the body, the head falling heavily on the shoulder, and the 

 broad mass of light, formed by the body and sheet, are finely con- 

 ceived. Every thing else is kept low in tone. A quiet calm 

 breathes among the figures who are taking down the body they 

 are lowering their dead Redeemer carefully ; his enemies have left 

 him ; they who loved him, " and the Disciple whom Jesus loved," 

 are alone with his corse. The expression of the Madonna is very 

 touching ; she is pale and faint ; her hands are extended by an invo- 

 luntary impulse, and gently offer assistance. The sky behind is 

 cloudy, and dark as night a few streaks of light struggle with the 

 gloom the pale body of Christ and white sheet fix the eye. 



Nothing that Rubens has done, seems to have given him a mo- 

 ment's trouble his pictures, like the statues of Michael Angelo 

 convey the idea of having been perfected at a single blow : they 

 swarm with beings " that in the colours of the rainbow live, and 

 play i' the plighted clouds" instinct with motion, radiant as a sun- 

 rise, juicy as a peach ; nature wantons as in her prime ; wild above 

 all art. The correct drawing of the Roman painters, or the highly 

 wrought texture of the Venetian school, would be incompatible with 

 the easy looseness of style and unruly will wherewith they are 

 finished. Rubens sometimes expresses the colour, form, and natural 

 effect of an object a tear rolling on a cheek, or a sparkling drop of 

 grape-juice, for instance, by two or three touches. His Bacchanalian 

 subjects are the most perfect of his works, because they require no 

 refined character. What a picture is the Silenus ! how drunk is the 

 white-bearded gorbellied preceptor of Bacchus ! how brimful of 

 rustic mischief and fun the group of fawns who are shouldering him 

 along ! A wild and beautiful girl squeezes a bunch of grapes over the 

 rubicund " huge hill of flesh" the glittering drops slip along his 

 hair and breast, like dew on a wild boar. 



