The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 2 [of 2]Shelley, Percy Bysshe
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The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 2 [of 2]
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
English prose literature
But, perhaps, the most interesting of all the pictures of Guido which
I saw, was a Madonna Lattante. She is leaning over her child, and the
maternal feelings with which she is pervaded are shadowed forth on
her soft and gentle countenance, and in her simple and affectionate
gestures--there is what an unfeeling observer would call a dulness
in the expression of her face; her eyes are almost closed; her lip
depressed; there is a serious, and even a heavy relaxation, as it were,
of all the muscles which are called into action by ordinary emotions;
but it is only as if the spirit of love, almost insupportable from its
intensity, were brooding over and weighing down the soul, or whatever
it is, without which the material frame is inanimate and inexpressive.
There is another painter here, called Franceschini, a Bolognese, who,
though certainly very inferior to Guido, is yet a person of excellent
powers. One entire church, that of Santa Catarina, is covered by his
works. I do not know whether any of his pictures have ever been seen in
England. His colouring is less warm than that of Guido, but nothing can
be more clear and delicate, it is as if he could have dipped his pencil
in the hues of some serenest and star-shining twilight. His forms have
the same delicacy and aerial loveliness; their eyes are all bright
with innocence and love; their lips scarce divided by some gentle and
sweet emotion. His winged children are the loveliest ideal beings ever
created by the human mind. These are generally, whether in the capacity
of Cherubim or Cupid, accessories to the rest of the picture; and
the underplot of their lovely and infantine play is something almost
pathetic, from the excess of its unpretending beauty. One of the best
of his pieces is an Annunciation of the Virgin; the Angel is beaming in
beauty; the Virgin, soft, retiring, and simple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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