Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 415 pages of information about Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series.

Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 415 pages of information about Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series.
the convulsions of artificial ecstasy.  The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the attitudinising of Anselmi’s saints and angels, and a general sacrifice of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how easy it was to go astray with the great master.  Meanwhile no one could approach him in that which was truly his own—­the delineation of a transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a smile on Nature’s face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with the movement of joyous living creatures.  Another demonic nature of a far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in Italy.  Michelangelo’s constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men and women—­colossal trunks and writhen limbs—­interpret the meanings of his deep and melancholy soul.

It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the aesthetic impulse is on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness rather than the vigour, of their predecessors.  While painting was in the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to absurdity.  All arts describe a parabola.  The force which produces them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line of regular declension.  There is no real break of continuity.  The end is the result of simple exhaustion.  Thus the last of our Elizabethan dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of their forerunners.  Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor.  Each step was a step of progress—­at first for the better—­at last for the worse—­but logical, continuous, necessitated.[11]

It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art.  Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is beautiful and earnest?  There is no doubt that Correggio’s work is in a way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend.  In so far we must admit that his art is both excellent and solid.  Yet we are unable to conceive that any human being could be made better—­stronger for endurance,

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Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.