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You saw fine frescoes by Domenichino and Guido Reni in Rome and Naples, and I am sure you remember perfectly Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome in the Vatican Gallery. "Perhaps," he continued, with an inquiring look, "you know the principle on which this school of painting was founded, and which gave it its name."
His immobility, his admiration, can only be understood by other souls open to ideal beauty, to the ineffable joy of beholding art made perfect; such as these can stand for whole hours before the Antiope Correggio's masterpiece before Leonardo's Gioconda, Titian's Mistress, Andrea del Sarto's Holy Family, Domenichino's Children Among the Flowers, Raphael's little cameo, or his Portrait of an Old Man Art's greatest masterpieces.
"I really feel," with an apologetic smile, "that I can do nothing with Raphael. There is so much of him scattered about everywhere. We will regard this morning's study as only preliminary, and you must study his pictures by yourselves, wherever you find them. By the way," and he turned to look back through the doorway, "you must not forget to come here again to see Domenichino's great picture.
He began to wander through the streets in an aimless way, brooding miserably over the scene of the morning, and wishing that he had never consented to Domenichino's plan of holding the meeting in Brisighella. If at the beginning he had declared the project too dangerous, some other place would have been chosen; and both he and Montanelli would have been spared this ghastly, ridiculous farce.
And the hard but true lineaments of Holbein, the aërial grace of Malbone's "Hours," Albert Durer's mediaeval sanctities, Overbeck's conservative self-devotion, a market-place by Ostade, Reynolds's "Strawberry Girl," one of Copley's colonial grandees in a New England farmer's parlor, a cabinet gem by Greuze, a dog or sheep of Landseer's, the misty depths of Turner's "Carthage," Domenichino's "Sibyl," Claude's sunset, or Allston's "Rosalie," how much of eras in Art, events in history, national tastes, and varieties of genius do they each foreshadow and embalm!
But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products of his cold and clever talent, we gasp and push on, the most resolute alone getting through.
He made free use of the compositions of even contemporary artists, while he individualized these compositions. His good and bad qualities are those of his school, already quoted, and perhaps it is in keeping with these qualities that the excellence of Domenichino's works lies in subordinate parts and subordinate characters. There are examples of Domenichino in the National Gallery.
The Christ disputing with the Doctors is inimitable, one of the wonderful works of Leonardo da Vinci: but here is Domenichino's Diana among her nymphs, very laboured, and very learned. Why did it put me in mind of Hogarth's strolling actresses dressing in a barn?
"Here are good examples of the work of the three Carracci," continued he, as after a time they entered the adjoining hall. "But what does this mean?" cried Malcom, in an astonished voice, pausing before a large picture, the Communion of St. Jerome, which bore the name, Agostino Carracci. "How like it is to Domenichino's great picture in the Vatican!
Lanzi says it is commonly reported that an aged woman, accompanied by a little boy, was seen long wistfully engaged in viewing Domenichino's picture, showing it part by part to the boy, and next, turning to that of Guido, painted directly opposite, she gave it a cursory glance and passed on.
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