United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This episode, of which I have briefly given the outline, was the principal event of Alfred de Musset's life, the one which marked and colored it most deeply, which brought his genius to perfection by a cruel and fiery torture, and left a lasting imprint upon his writings. Although he never produced anything finer than certain passages of "Rolla," which was published in 1833, yet previous to that or more accurately to 1835, when he began to write again he had composed no long poem of equal merit throughout, none in which the flight was sustained from first to last. The magnificent series of the "Nights" of May, December, August and October, the "Letter to Lamartine," "Stanzas on the Death of Malibran," "Hope in God," and a number of others of not less melody and vigor, but less exalted and serious in tone; several plays, among them Lorenzaccio, which missed only by a very little being a fine tragedy; the greater part of his prose tales and criticisms, including Le Fils de Titien, the most charming of his stories, and the Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle, which shows as much genius as any of his poems, belong to the period from 1835 to 1840, his apogee. Of the last work, notwithstanding its unmistakable personal revelations which, if they do not tell the author's story, at least reflect his state of mind Paul de Musset says, what everybody who has read his brother's writings carefully will feel to be true, that neither in the hero nor any other single personage must we look for Alfred's entire individuality. In the complexity of his character and emotions, and the contradictions which they united, are to be found the eidolon of every young man in his collection, even "the two heroes of Les Caprices de Marianne, Octave and Clio," says Paul, "although they are the antipodes of one another." Neither is it as easy as it would seem on the surface to trace the thread of any one incident of his life through his writings. Although containing some irreconcilable passages, the four "Nights" appeared to have been born of the same impulse and to exact the same dedication: it is undeniably a shock to have their inconsistencies explained by hearing that while the "Nuits de Mai," "d'Août" and "d'Octobre" refer to his passion for Madame Sand, the "Nuit de Décembre" and "Lettre
Without precisely calling Titian to account in set terms, his biographers Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and above all M. Georges Lafenestre in La Vie et L'Oeuvre du Titien, have relentlessly raked up Aretino's past before he came together with the Cadorine, and as pitilessly laid bare that organised system of professional sycophancy, adulation, scurrilous libel, and blackmail, which was the foundation and the backbone of his life of outward pomp and luxurious ease at Venice.
Herr Wickhoff goes a step further. He says: "Un autre portrait qui porte le nom de Titien est également l'une des oeuvres les plus remarquables du Musée. On prétend qu'il représente le 'Médecin du Titien, Parma'; mais c'est l
'Le Fils de Titien and Croiselles' are carefully elaborated historical novelettes; the latter is considered one of his best works, overflowing with romantic spirit, and contrasting in this respect strangely with 'La Mouche' , one of the last flickerings of his imagination. 'Maggot' bears marks of the influence of George Sand; 'Le Merle Blanc' is a sort of allegory dealing with their quarrel.
A subject this which, transposed into an atmosphere at once more frankly sensuous and of a higher spirituality, might well have served as the basis for such a picture as Giorgione's Fête Champêtre in the Salon Carré of the Louvre! Magazine of Art, July 1895. Life and Times of Titian, vol. i. p. 111. La Vie et l'Oeuvre du Titien, 1887.
The original drawing by Titian for the subject of this fresco is to be found among those publicly exhibited at the École des Beaux Arts of Paris. It is in error given by Morelli as in the Malcolm Collection, and curiously enough M. Georges Lafenestre repeats this error in his Vie et Oeuvre du Titien.
Word Of The Day