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INGENUOUS YOUTH! if, in a constant perusal of the master-writers, you see your own sentiments anticipated if, in the tumult of your mind, as it comes in contact with theirs, new sentiments arise if, sometimes, looking on the public favourite of the hour, you feel that within which prompts you to imagine that you could rival or surpass him if, in meditating on the confessions of every man of genius, for they all have their confessions, you find you have experienced the same sensations from the same circumstances, encountered the same difficulties and overcome them by the same means; then let not your courage be lost in your admiration, but listen to that "still small voice" in your heart which cries with CORREGGIO and with MONTESQUIEU, "Ed io anche son pittore!"
The Florentines and those who shared their spirit Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael deriving this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific construction.
Our minds, in going thither, were mainly bent upon Correggio and his works, and while our dinner was cooking at the admirable Albergo della Posta, we went off to feast upon the perennial Hash of Frogs in the dome of the Cathedral.
The sixteenth century produced the four greatest Painters, that is to say, managers of color, whom the world has seen; namely, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, Titian, and Correggio. I need not say more to justify my calling it the age of Painting. This, then, being the state of things respecting art in general, let us next trace the career of landscape through these centuries.
This picture, commonly distinguished by the appellation of the St. Jerome of CORREGGIO, is undoubtedly his chef d'oeuvre. In the year 1749, the king of Portugal is said to have offered for it a sum equal in value to L18,000 sterling. N deg. 756. Catherine. This last-mentioned picture has just been engraved in an excellent manner by an Italian artist, M. ROSA-SPINA.
Though Coypel wanted a simplicity of taste, and mistook a presumptuous and assuming air for what is grand and majestic; yet he frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner of telling his stories, great skill in his compositions, and is not without a considerable power of expressing the passions, The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bouche and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmigiano.
So Correggio is popular with a certain set, and Vandyke with a certain set, and Rembrandt with a certain set. Rubens is not more vigorous than Titian, but less vigorous; but because he is so narrow-minded as to enjoy vigour only, he refuses to give the other qualities of nature, which would interfere with that vigour and with our perception of it.
He did not continue to beam irradiating beatitudes, as the old Ribera and the older Correggio have done for hundreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, tucked the child's hand into his own, and led her off to her mother. I kept at my work. For me the incident, delightful as it was, was closed.
"Yes, yes," said the good-natured nun; "surely you shall hear all I can tell you about it; but " she hesitated timidly, "but I must ask the Mother Superior's leave first." Saying these words, she summoned the portress, to my great amusement, to keep guard over the inestimable Correggio in her absence, and left the room.
Then putti are practical and useful they hold up scrolls, tie back draperies, carry pictures, point out great folks, feed birds, and in one instance Correggio has ten of them leading a dog out to execution.
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