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It was always clever, but often artificial; like the composition of a Renaissance painter who inserts his bel corpo ignudo to catch the eye. In "Fors," however, the web is of a piece, all sparkling with the same life; though as it is gradually unwound from the loom it is hard to judge the design. That can only be done when it is reviewed as a whole.
Among the royal families of Europe, Orsini's influence was at once understood, but it was thought to have its source in fear. It was remarked how, when the sentence of death was passed, the condemned man, turning to his counsel, whispered the words of Tasso Risorgerò, nemico ognor più crudo, Cenere anco sepolto e spirto ignudo.
He came, however, to use what he had learned from Nature as means for the expression of soul-stimulating thoughts. This, the finest feature of his genius, no artist of the age was capable of adequately comprehending. Accordingly, they agreed in extolling a cartoon which displayed his faculty of dealing with un bel corpo ignudo as the climax of his powers.
The saint or angel became an occasion for the display of physical perfection, and to introduce un bel corpo ignudo into the composition was of more moment to them than to represent the macerations of the Magdalen. Men thus learned to look beyond the relique and the host, and to forget the dogma in the lovely forms which gave it expression.
He describes its subject as "un pastore ignudo ed una forese chi li porge certi flauti per che suoni."
This is what the Italians of the Renaissance meant when, through the mouths of Ghiberti, Buonarroti, and Cellini, they proclaimed that the perfect drawing of a fine nude, "un bel corpo ignudo," was the final test of mastery in plastic art. Mr. Ruskin develops his text in sentences which have peculiar value from his lips.
The artist, therefore, too easily imagines that he may neglect his theme; that a fine piece of colouring, a well-balanced composition, or, as Cellini put it, 'un bel corpo ignudo, is enough.
The saint or angel became an occasion for the display of physical perfection, and to introduce 'un bel corpo ignudo' into the composition was of more moment to them than to represent the macerations of the Magdalen. Men thus learned to look beyond the relique and the host, and to forget the dogma in the lovely forms which gave it expression.
The habits of the day, voluptuous yet hardy, fostered this one-sided development of the arts; while the asceticism of the Middle Ages had yielded to a pagan cult of sensuality. To draw un bel corpo ignudo with freedom was now the ne plus ultra of achievement. How to express thought or to indicate the subtleties of emotion, had ceased to be the artist's aim.
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