XXX 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



while in harmony, Correggio Is admitted to have 

 excelled them. " The harmony of Correggio," 

 it has been observed, " though assisted by 

 exquisite hues, was entirely independent of 

 colour ; his great organ was chiaroscuro in its 

 motft extensive sense ; compared with the expanse 

 in hich he floats, the effects of da Vinci are 

 little more than the dying ray of evening, and 

 the concentrated flash of Giorgione, discordant 

 abruptness." Titian was another of those gifted 

 masters; he excelled in delineations of voluptuous 

 Ix'.mty, and in splendour of colour; but in his 

 Ii.m.U art lost something of its severe grandeur. 

 Tintoretto, too free to be correct, and too daring 

 to be chaste, followed in the same path, and 

 produced works sometimes rising to the sublime, 

 more frequently descending to the tumid. The 

 almost supernatural brilliancy of colour which 

 distinguished the Venetian branch of Italian art 

 has been instanced by all painters, particularly 

 those who dealt in duller materials, as a falling 

 off from the severe dignity of the true historic ; 

 this is perhaps true, for the colours may be too 

 celestial for figures of mere flesh and blood ; but 

 it is true only in those works where conception 

 and character are subordinate to the colour. 

 Had the genius of Titian or Tintoretto been of 

 the same order as that of Raphael, their senti- 

 ment would have rivalled their heavenly hues ; 

 there is a want of unity and propriety in their 

 performances on that account alone. 



While painting was achieving a fame rivalling 

 that in Greece of old, sculpture was advancing, 

 though not with equal success and fortune. 

 Something of this tardiness of growth must be 

 attributed to the climate as well as to the peculiar 

 character of the Gothic tribes. Our northern 

 lands are cold and moist, compared to the 

 sunnier regions whence sculpture came ; we are 

 clad in close thick dresses, and unaccustomed to 

 the sight of naked beauty, are startled at the 

 rude figures which filled the isles and continent 

 of Greece. Our taste too inclines more to the 

 picturesque ; splendid colours and action, which 

 compared to the repose of ancient statuary, may 

 be regarded as extravagant, are more acceptable 

 than what is simple and staid. Religion, too, 

 called for greater decorum of design ; our 

 madonnas were not permitted to bare their vo- 

 luptuous bosoms ; and our male saints, who ex- 

 hibited their bodies, were those only who had 

 grown skeletons by fasting and vigil, or who were 

 tied to the stake, to be stoned, or flogged, or 

 burnt. It is true that art escaped from this 

 penitential restraint, and displayed all that was 

 beautiful or attractive in fonn or colour ; for 

 centuries, nevertheless, the soberer influence pre- 



vailed, and figures male and female were manu- 

 factured, the severity of whose looks and forma 

 were sufficiently forbidding and repulsive. 



The sculptors who first escaped from this 

 ascetic style into something like nature .and 

 poetry were Nicolas Pisano and his son John ; 

 they executed some magnificent marble pulpits, 

 adorned with basso relievos and statues, in Pisa 

 and Sienna. They studied the antique sculptures 

 of the Campo Santo ; yet there is more of Gothic 

 grandeur than of Greek simplicity in their pro- 

 ductions ; the positions are elegant and the 

 draperies natural. Donatello, the Florentine, 

 followed ; he was a worker in bronze as well as 

 marble ; in the cathedral of Florence there is an 

 alto-relief of two singing boys of extraordinary 

 beauty in sentiment and drawing. Also a bronze 

 statue of a youth in the gallery of Florence, so 

 delicately proportioned and so perfectly natural 

 as to be surpassed only by the best works of 

 antiquity ; his statue of St George united such 

 simplicity of conception with such living senti- 

 ment, that Michael Angelo, after beholding it in 

 wonder for some minutes, suddenly exclaimed, 

 " march !" Ghiberti succeeded, and more than 

 rivalled him in the celebrated bronze gates of 

 the Baptistry of St John, which Angelo declared 

 were worthy of being gates to paradise. The 

 art reached its height in the hands of him who 

 proudly wrote himself " Michael Angelo, poet, 

 painter, sculptor, and architect." In all his 

 works there is a loftiness of conception which 

 shows that sublimity and grandeur were his 

 natural elements ; his delight was to be daring ; 

 he invaded the sanctity of heaven for subjects, 

 and he penetrated to the depths of hell : the chief 

 actors in his wondrous scenes are gods and 

 demons, and souls of men condemned or saved : 

 with man in his common and household mood he 

 refused to grapple : he touched indeed on female 

 beauty, but it was loveliness connected with the 

 sublimities of religion which he contemplated : 

 he scorned little things, and it may be said of 

 him as it was of Milton, that he could hew a 

 colossus out of a rock, but could not carve a 

 head out of a cherry stone. Yet it must be 

 acknowledged that Michael Angelo sacrificed, 

 oftener than was required, true simplicity to 

 picturesque grandeur : his best groups and his 

 iinest figures want the compact elegance and 

 severe truth of Grecian sculpture ; it is true that 

 he has left specimens in his Lorenzo di Meclicis, 

 and Virgin and Child, which may be compared 

 with aught the ancient world produced, but his 

 common fault is excess of imagination, of con- 

 ception flying too high a flight, and of action 

 forced into extravagance. His desire of uniting 





