The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain: Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.Wells, Nathaniel Armstrong
Islamic
The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain: Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.
No one but Murillo could ever have thus embodied his conception of a
supernatural vision. On sitting down before this canvass, from which, as
it extends across the whole chapel, no other object can draw off the
attention, you speedily yield to the irresistible power of abstraction,
and are lost in an ecstacy, nearly resembling that which the artist has
sought to represent in the countenance and attitude of his Saint. The
eye wanders in a sort of trance through the glorious assemblage of
Heaven. The whole scene looks real: but it is only on taking time to
study the details that you discover the prodigies of talent displayed in
the drawing and finishing of this picture. An angel, suspended in front
of the lower portion of the group, more especially attracts the
attention. One leg is extended towards the spectator, the foreshortening
of which is a marvel of execution.
Over the San Antonio, as it does not reach to the ceiling, there is a
smaller picture, representing the Baptism of Christ, also by Murillo. In
a chapel at the south-west angle of the church, there are several fine
paintings by Luis de Vargas, one of the founders of the school of
Seville.
In the choir, the collection of books for the chanting services is worth
seeing. Of these immense folios, enclosed in massive covers, bound with
a profusion of wrought metal mostly silver--may be counted upwards of a
hundred. They are filled with paintings, infinite in minuteness and
beauty. For the performances of the daily services and all duties,
ordinary and extraordinary, within this edifice, more than eight hundred
persons are employed. Five hundred masses are recited each day at the
different altars: all of which taking place during the early part of the
day, an idea may be formed of the business which goes on. Of the six or
seven organs, I have heard three playing at the same time in different
parts of the church; but so widely separated, as by no means to
interfere with each other's harmony. One of them was one of the two
great organs which face each other over the choir. These two play a duet
once a year, on the day of the Corpus. The effect they produce is not so
powerful as that produced at Toledo, but far more beautiful. At Toledo
the two which correspond to these, are assisted on that occasion by a
third, as powerful as both the others united, placed over the portal of
the south transept, at an elevation of about seventy feet from the
ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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