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Somewhere, years ago in Italy perhaps, but I think at the Taylor Institution, Oxford I saw the drawings made by Rafaelle for Leo X. of furniture and decoration in his new palace; be it observed in parenthesis, that one who has not beheld the master's work in this utilitarian style of art has but a limited understanding of his supremacy.
The world will grow tired of pretending to admire Manichaean pictures in an age of natural science; and Art will let the dead bury their dead, and beginning again where Michael Angelo and Rafaelle left off work forward into a nobler, truer, freer, and more divine school than the world has yet seen at least, so I hope. And all this has grown out of those foxhounds. Why not?
We have seen the art carried to a high degree of perfection by Da Vinci and Buonarotti, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and it is remarkable that the same period embraces not only Rafaelle, but also Correggio, Giorgione, Titian, and the most celebrated Venetian painters; so that a man enjoying the common term of life might have seen the works of all these illustrious masters.
His property remained under legal control for thirteen years, until his death. The great Italian artists were for the most part temperate and moderate men, and lived within their means. Haydon, in his Autobiography, says, "Rafaelle, Michael Angelo, Zeuxis, Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, were rich and happy. Why? Because with their genius they combined practical prudence."
Among the pictures here, the entombing our blessed Saviour by Rafaelle is most praised: It is supposed indeed wholly inestimable, and I believe is so, while Venus, binding Cupid's eyes, by Titian, engraved by Strange, is possibly one of the pleasantest pictures in Rome.
One of them, Rafaelle by name, to whom God gave the spirit of beauty in a measure in which he never gave it, perhaps, to any other man, tried again and again, for years, painting over and over that simple subject the mother and her babe and could not satisfy himself. Each of his pictures is most beautiful each in a different way; and yet none of them is perfect.
The count hastened to prepare for his departure. He wondered what was the nature of the piece of which the duke had spoken so highly. "It must be a wonderful painting," said he, "for the duke is usually sparing in his praise. It is probably one of Rafaelle or Guido. Well, I will soon see it." Stella felt a joy which words could not utter.
I abominate this setting up of Sculpture above Painting, of the Greeks above the Italians, as if all Eastern civilization, all Christian truth, had taught art nothing, as if there was not more real beauty in a French cathedral or a Venetian palazzo than in a dozen Parthenons, and more soul in one Rafaelle, or Titian either, than in all the Greek statues of the Tribune or Vatican.
He was led through the long suite of rooms where the splendor of royal magnificence is all unnoticed amid the charms of priceless paintings, for there the Madonna of Rafaelle tells of the boundless depths of a mother's love, and there Murillo's Madonna breathes forth virgin purity. At length the duke stopped before a picture covered by a screen.
De L'Omelette pressed his hand upon his heart, closed his eyes, raised them, and caught his Satanic Majesty in a blush. But the paintings! Kupris! Astarte! Astoreth! a thousand and the same! And Rafaelle has beheld them! Yes, Rafaelle has been here, for did he not paint the ? and was he not consequently damned? The paintings the paintings! O luxury!
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