A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools: Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin
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A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools: Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin
National Gallery (Great Britain); Painting -- England -- London -- Catalogs
Look at this and the other little boy near it (176), and you will see
at once the secret of Murillo's popularity. "In a country like Spain
he became easily the favourite of the crowd. He was one of themselves,
and had all the gifts they valued. Not like Velazquez, reproducing by
choice only the noble and dignified side of the national character,
Murillo could paint to perfection either the precocious sentiment of
the Good Shepherd with the lamb by his side, or the rags and happiness
of the gipsy beggar boy" (W. B. Scott's _Murillo_, p. 76)--
Poor and content is rich and rich enough.
75. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.
_Domenichino_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1581-1641). _See_ 48.
Compare this conventional representation of the subject with the
imaginative one by Tintoretto (16). Amongst points of comparison notice
the absence of anything terrible in the dragon, the crowd of spectators
(on the walls in the distance), St. George's helmet; and where is his
spear?
76. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.
_After Correggio_. _See under_ 10.
This is an old copy, or perhaps a replica, of the original picture
in the possession of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. The
treatment of the subject is remarkable, and characteristic of
Correggio. "The angel hovers in mid-air with marvellous ease and
lightness, and though he bears the healing message of approaching
bliss, he cannot restrain his sense of pity. His face is at once
radiant and sorrowful, expressing the mingled feelings with which he
points on the one hand to heaven, on the other to the cross and crown
of thorns. Christ, effulgent in his long straight robe and shining
aureole, gazes upward with mournful resignation, the spasm of agony
dying out of his face. The twilight landscape is calm and melancholy.
The supernatural radiance sheds but a faint light on the grass and
bushes, scarcely touching the figures of the sleeping disciples, and
dying out completely in the dense foliage beyond. But in the distance
a band of soldiers, scarcely visible by the faint glimmer of their
torches, draws near, led by Judas, and over the mountains the sky
whitens with the first pale streak of dawn" (Ricci: _Correggio: his
Life, his Friends, and his Time_, p. 231). The effect of light,
Mengs points out, is peculiar: "the radiance of the Saviour's face
lights up the picture. But this radiance comes from above, as if from
Heaven, while the angel is illuminated by the light reflected from
the Saviour." It is interesting to compare Correggio's version of the
agony with the earlier one by Bellini (726) and Mantegna (1417). The
earlier pictures impress us, but the manner of impression is quite
different. There is no attempt either in the Bellini or in the Mantegna
to win our sympathy by the beauty of the human type. This, on the other
hand, is of the essence of Correggio's art. "The figure of Christ and
the Angel represent the dignity of perfect humanity; and Correggio
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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