Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)Spooner, Shearjashub
History
Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)
Spooner, Shearjashub
Art -- Anecdotes; Artists -- Anecdotes
But in Spain the case was wholly different. There was no transient
insurrection of a purer morality against the vicious extravagancies of a
particular period, but a constant and uniform pressure exerted without
intermission on all the means of developing and cultivating the human
mind, or of imparting its sentiments to others. Painting and Sculpture
came in for their share of restriction, and the nature of the discipline
to which they were subjected may be gathered from the work of Pacheco,
(_Arte de la Pintura_) who was appointed in 1618, by a particular
commission from the Inquisition, “to denounce the errors committed in
pictures of sacred subjects through the ignorance or wickedness of
artists.” He was commissioned to “take particular care to visit and
inspect the paintings of sacred subjects which may stand in the public
places of Seville, and if anything objectionable appeared in them, to
take them before the Inquisition.” His rules, therefore, may properly be
received as a fair exponent of the strictures placed upon Art by the
Inquisition. In his work upon the Art of Painting, Pacheco censures the
nudity of the figures in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, as well as
other things. Thus he says: “As to placing the damned in the air,
fighting as they are one with another, and pulling against the devils,
when it is matter of faith that they must want the free gifts of glory,
and cannot, therefore, possess the requisite lightness or agility--the
impropriety of this mode of exhibiting them is self-evident. With
regard, again, to the angels without wings and the saints without
clothes, although the former do not possess the one and the latter will
not have the other, yet, as angels without wings are unknown to us, and
our eyes do not allow us to see the saints without clothes, as we shall
hereafter--there can be no doubt, that this again is improper. It is
moreover, highly indecent and improper, having regard to their nature,
to paint angels with beards.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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