[367] Modern criticism would doubtless have a good deal to say in qualification of this. The name of Bellini alone is sufficiently suggestive.
[368] This emphasis on the work of Raphael and Correggio is characteristic of the best art criticism of the times of Hegel, but marks its limitations. Neither Raphael nor Correggio can be called religious painters in the sense that those profound masters Tintoret and Michelangelo were such. The essentially academic aspect of so much of Raphael's later production is not noticed. And it is these three great names, Titian, Tintoret, and Michelangelo, who most truly mark the transition to our modern outlook.
[369] Eine aüssere Abgeschlossenheit. This must mean, I think, a dignified and reserved treatment of the technique mainly of such themes.
[370] The technical and somewhat long-worded aspect of Hegel's style is here at its worst and I find it hard to make complete sense of this doubtless unrevised passage. The main difficulty is this, that the sentence appears to assert that "the centre" (der Mittelpunkt) of religion persists (fortbleibt) and yet asserts in the same breath that the informing unity is broken up. I have done my best.
[371] A piety which is not merely emotional, but is concrete in active life, possesses practical content.
[372] See note at end of chapter.
[373] This appears rather to contradict what Hegel has said before of the impression a fine picture such as Correggio's Magdalene leaves upon us that we cannot imagine the character to be other than it is. See note below.
[374] More literally, "Without the alleviating effect of what is comic."
[375] I presume die Formen refers here rather to the artistic forms of grouping and composition than the traits of vital expression. But perhaps the latter interpretation would be more natural to the words.
[376] The above survey of Dutch art is of great interest, and in its careful comparison of the type of that art with the national development of the Dutch may be contrasted favourably with the somewhat prejudiced criticism of such a critic as John Ruskin. At the same time I think it must be obvious that Hegel is a little inclined to overrate the ideal aspect of that portion of it we may indicate in the work of painters such as Wouvermans or Teniers, many examples of which are little removed from the defects of theme he points out in more modern work. Also personally I should say that, if we exclude the supreme genius of Rembrandt, he rather exaggerates their rank as supreme colourists in respect to the scintillation, mystery, and other effects of light. To consider that they rank above the Venetians in this respect is wholly impossible, to say nothing of Velasquez. Rubens, however, may add some support to the view, but he is hardly in the school described, and Van Dyck stands with him.