Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 1. The Emigrant LiteratureBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 1. The Emigrant Literature
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
of Correggio; the apostles and martyrs too are still depicted, but the
stoned and crucified saints of olden times, painted for the purpose
of exciting compassion and devotional feeling, are transformed into
the St. Sebastians of Titian and Guido Reni, the beautiful young page
glowing with health and beauty, the dazzling white of whose flesh is
thrown into relief by one or two drops of blood which drip from an
arrow-head inserted becomingly between the ribs.
Oswald is taught by Corinne to admire the liberal spirit of Italian
Catholicism, which in the days of the Renaissance permitted each
artist to develop his talent or genius with perfect independence, even
when he only made his Christian or Jewish subject a pretext for the
representation of his own personal ideal of man or woman. This brings
us to another of Oswald's stumbling-blocks, namely, that blending of
the Christian and the pagan which so offended him in the reliefs by
Antonio Filarete on the doors of St. Peter's. The same thing is to be
observed everywhere; everywhere the pagan material has been preserved
and employed. The old basilicas and churches are built with the pillars
of antique temples. A simple cross superficially christianises the
obelisks, the Colosseum, and the interior of the Pantheon. The statues
of Menander and Posidippos were prayed to as saints all through the
Middle Ages.
Corinne shows Oswald that it is to this often childish, but always
unprejudiced position towards the pagan and the human, that Catholicism
owes the artistic glory with which it will always shine in history,
a glory which will never be dimmed by the artistic performances of
Protestantism. Protestantism tears down from above its altars the
beautiful Albano peasant women with smiling babes at their breasts,
tinder the pretext that they are Madonnas, whitewashes all the glowing
pictures, and glories in bare walls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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