82 ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM 



Courtier. The 'seignior' and his lady existed in life: 'around these 

 ideal figures real figures move at various distances'. ^8 



Second, man was not (?j:;^rcultivated : 'it is necessary that image 

 be not smothered nor mutilated by ideas\^^ Only thus could the 

 artist be spontaneous and truly natural. The German is too 

 obsessed with 'the desire to obtain general ideas of humanity, 

 society, the supernatural, nature, and countless other things, in 

 brief, a complete philosophy' ^O; the Parisian lives in a perpetual 

 state of feverish over-excitement. The modern mind, educated to 

 abstractions, finds images only 'through a species of disordered 

 and dangerous hallucination''*!; among the moderns, 'Goethe 

 alone maintained his balance . . .'."^^ 



These first two conditions were psychological, that is, they in- 

 volved a presumed 'state of minds' ; the third set of conditions was 

 more specific, having to do with external circumstances such as 

 are revealed by a study of history, ^3 which in this case were con- 

 ducive to acquaintance with the human form. These all sprang 

 essentially from 'the want of a long and firmly-established peace, 

 impartial justice, and a watchful police', ^4 so that men had to be 

 ready to defend themselves and were 'absorbed with great 

 anxieties and tragic passions'. "^^ The energetic and tempestuous 

 qualities of life are clearly exemplified in the Memoirs of Cellini; 

 and the universal interests aroused in such an active epoch, by 

 the careers of such men as Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo de 

 Medici. Only thus can we account for 'the heroic nudities and 

 terrible muscularities of Michael Angelo, the health, the placidity, 

 the pure expression of a Madonna by Raphael, the natural and 

 hardy vitality of a bronze by Donatello, the twining, strangely 

 seductive attitude of a figure by da Vinci, the superb animal 

 voluptuousness, the impetuous movement, the athletic force and 

 joyousness of the figures of Giorgione and Titian'. ^6 In sum: 'A 

 picturesque state of mind, that is to say, midway between pure 

 ideas and pure images, energetic characters and passionate habits 

 suited to giving a knowledge of and taste for beautiful physical 

 forms, constitute the temporary circumstances which, added to 

 the innate aptitudes of the race, produced, in Italy, the great and 

 perfect painting of the human form.'47 



Art in the Netherlands and Greece 



By a process of abstraction from the qualities of the works of 

 art themselves, and from the external conditions which helped 



