211 



CORREGGIO. 



Cfcrrcggio. must, in the same degree, lose si^lit of all distinct local 

 ^V" ' colour ; so that it" we set out with the principle of in- 

 troducing bright colours, we must of necessity give up 

 that tenderness of outline which Correggio esteemed 

 so great a beauty; or if we adopt his tender outline, 

 variety of colour, in a great measure, must be avoided, 

 as inconsistent and unnatural. In this country, there 

 are few genuine works of Correggio to which we can 

 refer as examples, to illustrate how far this general rule 

 guided his practice. We may, however, mention the 

 beautiful specimen in the possession of Mr Angerstein, 

 which represents our Saviour praying in the garden, 

 and an angel listening, while the disciples are seen at 

 some distance sunk in sleep. The utmost degree of 

 tenderness and delicacy as to outline, and the greatest 

 sobriety and softness of effect, are remarkable through- 

 out the whole of this highly beautiful composition. A 

 solemn twilight is spread over all the parts of it ; and 

 as there is scarcely a single sharply marked line, so 

 there is scarcely any distinguishable variety of colour, 

 and the whole is reduced nearly to the simplicity of 

 i mere chiaro-scuro. There is also a picture by Correg- 



gio, but somewhat different in the general manage- 

 ment and effect, ia the possession of Mr Otley of Lon- 

 don, in which the artist has represented the story of 

 Jupiter and Io. A greater degree of illumination is 

 admitted into this composition ; and, in conformity to 

 the law we have stated above, the contours are more 

 iirm and decided, and a greater strength and variety of 

 tint is introduced. Chiaro-scuro is so inseparable from 

 design, that the one cannot perfectly exist without the 

 •other ; because design without light and shadow can 

 only represent a section of an object, and can there- 

 ■dbre never express the form of its surface. Correggio 

 is eminent for the knowledge and skill with which he 

 •models, as it were, the surfaces of the objects he repre- 

 sents, so that one may see in his pictures where the 

 surface rises, or where it sinks, even though his out- 

 line were hid, and that with the same appearance of 

 reality, as if we were looking at the natural objects 

 themselves. For his excellence in this respect, he is 

 said to have been indebted to his study of sculpture 

 and modelling under Antonio Begarelli, of whom Mi- 

 chael Angelo speaks in high terms of praise. 



Of his oil paintings, one of the most celebrated is 

 the picture called the St Jerome of Correggio. In this 

 picture he has represented the Virgin Mary seated, 

 with the infant Jesus on her knee ; Mary Magdalene, 

 in a kneeling attitude, embraces the foot of the Saviour, 

 whilst St Jerome presents a scroll to an angel. The 

 two altar pieces, which he executed for tlie church of 

 St Giovanni, are also much esteemed ; one representing 

 the martyrdom of St Placido, and the other the descent 

 from the cross. These inestimable pictures have been 

 torn from tlreir situations by the French, and are now 

 deposited in the Museum of the Louvre. It is wor- 

 thy of notice, that the French artists then resident at 

 Rome, in a memorial highly creditable to themselves, 

 stated to the National Convention the injury which the 

 cultivation of art would receive from removing those 

 chefs-d'oeuvre and others from the situation for which 

 they were originally painted. But this amiable appeal 

 met with the reception wlrich might have been expect- 

 ed from such a tribunal 



In the gallery at Dresden is his famous work, called 

 the Notte, representing the Nativity, and an exquisite 

 picture of the Magdalen reading. There are two pic- 

 tures that have also been much celebrated, which 

 jyijjinally were presented by the Duke of Mantua to 



Charles V. and which afterwards were in the collec- Correc- 

 tion of the Duke of Orleans. One represents Leda N ""*V" 

 and the other Danae. In both compositions the fables 

 to which they allude are told with all the delicacy that 

 is consistent with their being intelligible. A story 

 which is given by Azara of these two pictures is worth 

 mentioning, as a curious instance of that capricious fate 

 which sometimes attends the noblest works of art. 

 They had been sent by the Emperor Charles V. to 

 Prague, where they were placed in the royal palace, 

 and where they remained till the famous thirty years 

 war, when that city being sacked by the Swedes, Gus- 

 tavus Adolphus sent them to Stockholm. That king 

 being dead, they remained unknown in the minority of 

 Queen Christina, until an ambassador, who knew the 

 history, sought after these paintings, and at last found 

 them out serving as shutters for the windows of a stable. 

 " They were repaired," he adds, " and that queen 

 esteemed them as they merited; she carried them her- 

 self to Rome as precious things, and obtained previous 

 license of the Pope to take them out of the Popedom 

 whenever she wished." 



We must not omit mentioning tlie celebrated anec- 

 dote of Correggio, which is told by those of his biogra- 

 phers, who admit the fact of his having ever visited 

 Rome. It is said that, on beholding the frescoes of 

 Raphael in the Vatican, he gazed in silence for a long 

 time on these divine works, and that at last, conscious 

 of his own transcendent but less regarded talents, he 

 broke forth in the expressions of a manly and just self- 

 confidence, " Ed io ancke son piltore." 



On the whole, when we consider the perfection to 

 which this illustrious person carried his art, the sweet- 

 ness and delicacy of his execution, the unrivalled har- 

 mony of general effect which appears in all his works, 

 the truth and illusion of his light and shade, and the 

 perfect knowledge he displays in all the mechanical 

 parts of his art; but above ail, when we consider the 

 dignity of his conceptions, and that character of celes- 

 tial purity and beauty which he has imparted to many 

 of the more exalted personages in his compositions ; 

 while, on the one hand, such a combination of excellen- 

 cies must place Correggio in the highest rank as a 

 painter, the very nature of those excellencies, when 

 thus carried to such a degree of perfection, seems, on 

 the other, absolutely irreconcileable with the commonly 

 received opinion, that through all the disabilities of ig- 

 norance, indigence, and obscurity, he sought out his 

 way to these without a guide, and that he never even saw 

 the works of his great contemporaries and predecessors. 

 That such an opinion, without the very best evidence 

 to support it, should ever have gained currency, seems 

 strange ; an opinion inconsistent with all that we know 

 of the natural progress of the art itself, at variance with 

 the fixed laws which regulate and limit the progress and 

 power of the human faculties, and contradicted by the 

 direct testimony which even the works of his early 

 years contain. When we consider, also, the moderate 

 distance between liis native province and the great de- 

 positories of the arts in Rome and Florence, it seems 

 inconceivable that he should not have visited these, un- 

 less we can suppose that, among the other marvellous 

 circumstances in the structure of his mind, it was de- 

 prived of the principle of ordinary curiosity. 



He died in 1534-, in the prime of life. The family 

 name of Correggio was Alegri. He sometimes signed 

 himself Antonio Lieto da Coreggio. (/) 



CORRIGIOLA, a genus of plants of the class Pen- 

 tandria, and order Trigynia, See Botany, p. 10& 



