Such is the exquisite line and turn of the averted half-kneeling female
with the two children among the spectators of Heliodorus. Her attitude,
the turn of her neck, supplies all face, and intimates more than he ever
expressed by features; and that she would not have gained by showing
them, may be guessed from her companion on the foreground, who, though
highly elegant and equally pathetic in her action, has not features
worthy of either. The fact is, form and style were by Raffaello
employed chiefly, if not always, as vehicles of character and pathos;
the Drama is his element, and to that he has adapted them in a mode and
with a propriety which leave all attempts at emendation hopeless: if
his lines have been excelled or rivalled in energy, correctness,
elegance,--considered as instruments of the passions, they have never
been equalled, and as parts of invention, composition and expression
relative to his story, have never been approached.
The result of these observations on M. Agnolo and Raffaello is this,
that M. Agnolo drew in generic forms the human race; that Raffaello
drew the forms and characters of society diversified by artificial
wants.
We find therefore M. Agnolo more sublime, and we sympathise more with
Raffaello, because he resembles us more. When Reynolds said that M.
Agnolo had more _imagination_, and Raffaello more _fancy_, he meant to
say, that the one had more sublimity, more elementary fire; the other
was richer in social imagery, in genial conceits, and artificial
variety. Simplicity is the stamen of M. Agnolo; varied propriety, with
character, that of Raffaello.
Of the great restorers of Art, the two we have considered, made Design
and Style the basis of their plan, content with negative and unambitious
colour; the two next inverted the principle, and employed Design and
Style as vehicles of _colour_ or of _harmony_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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