[Footnote 257: This metaphor appears to me rather confused, and in fact I do not pretend wholly to understand its meaning. I suppose the idea is that beyond the clouds of soul-life there are the clouds that obscure Providence. In all this passage Hegel shows his limitations as an art student.] [Footnote 258: _Näher._ That is our love of God is mainly through Christ.] [Footnote 259: _Ein bloss eingelnes Moment._ A phase that passes or becomes relatively insignificant.] [Footnote 260: _Innigste_, most intimate. A curious but characteristic conclusion of Hegel.] [Footnote 261: This analysis must be accepted of course mainly as an analysis of the ideal proposed to us by the profoundest Christian art. It is obviously not true of much Italian art, Titian's work for example, and it is equally remote from many of the most probable facts of history.] [Footnote 262: _Die Starrheit._ The rigid or unyielding character.] [Footnote 263: _Der Gehalt ihres Gemüths._ It is possible to see in this analysis something rather capricious and far-fetched, and yet to appreciate its value as an analysis of Christian love for the deceased beloved as contrasted with pagan sentiment. The finest illustration I myself can recollect of this is not the mother Mary at all, but the figure of the Magdalene in Tintoret's "Deposition" in the S. Giorgio Maggiore Church in Venice. As a matter of fact the divine mother in sacred art is almost invariably depicted in a state of swoon under the stress of her grief, though Tintoret's Pietà in the Brera is a notable exception.] [Footnote 264: I do not know this painter. For pathos I know no finer conception of the death than that of Rembrandt's etching. Blake's drawing, exhibited recently at Cambridge, shows us the tranquillity and dignity of the scene more finely than any other representation.] [Footnote 265: I presume Hegel means this by the words _die Menschheit_, but it is a difficult passage.] [Footnote 266: It is impossible in English to preserve the antithesis between _bitten_ and _beten._] [Footnote 267: _Und nichts für sich hat._ That is to say reciprocity is of its essence. "Give and it shall be given unto you."] [Footnote 268: _Die Gestalt_ may possibly refer to the suppliant.] [Footnote 269: The Sistine Madonna.] [Footnote 270: A good instance is the great Crucifixion of Fra Angelico in the S. Mark convent in Florence.] [Footnote 271: And a painter like Carlo Dolci or the Caracci are even worse.] [Footnote 272: It would perhaps have been more instructive to consider the difference of temperament in the artist when dealing with such subjects and its influence on his treatment. It is very far from an obvious truth that physiognomy upon which the conflict of soul-life is most marked loses thereby the characteristics of beauty. There is the beauty of gnarled oak no less than that of the rose and the lily.]