Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt:...more as if demanding why He had taken Him. Rubens and Vandyck both conceived the subject in this sense. Both saw in it the capability for the display of their transcendent technical powers; and though with each it has successfully answered that purpose, yet with neither has it served any other. Rubens' picture of the Pieta in the Antwerp Museum is even too disagreeable for his glorious colour to redeem. The Christ lies foreshortened in the lap of the Virgin, who, leaning over the head, is engaged in closing one of the eyes. This wretched conceit, however it may sound in words, looks in the picture like a surgical operation, at which the Magdalen, holding one of the arms, and looking closely at the act, seems to be assisting. In this, and in most late representations of the scene, the Magdalen has her vase of ointment at her side, doubtless referring to the words when she originally poured the ointment on Hi3 head--' She has done it to my burial.' The idea that she assisted in the anointing of the body would be a false interpretation. This attribute, however, which gives the ideal view of her character, accords ill with the very realistic scene in which she is at this period usually engaged. In many instances the discrepancy 1 Guerazzi's text, to the Pieta by Feruginu in the engravings of the Pitti Gallery. is increased by its standing side by side with a matter-of-fact vessel; very offensive here--viz., the brass basin and sponge with which the body has been washed. This odious accessory, borrowed from the barber-surgeon or undertaker, is unworthy of Art, which, like Fiction, is interdicted such details. The old artists fell into no such mistakes; they had better judgment, because greater feeling. The 'virgin And Dead Christ Alone. This form cannot be said...