Such is the spirit of the Sistine chapel, and the outline of its general invention, with regard to the cycle of its subjects—as in their choice they lead to each other without intermediate chasms in the transition; as each preceding one prepares and directs the conduct of the next, this the following; and as the intrinsic variety of all, conspires to the simplicity of one great end. The specific invention of the pictures separate, as each constitutes an independent whole, deserves our consideration next: each has its centre, from which it disseminates, to which it leads back all secondary points; arranged, hid, or displayed, as they are more or less organs of the inspiring plan: each rigorously is circumscribed by its generic character, no inferiour merely conventional, temporary, local, or disparate beauty, however in itself alluring, is admitted; each finally turns upon that transient moment, the moment of suspense, big with the past, and pregnant with the future; the action no where expires, for action and interest terminate together. Thus in the creation of Adam, the Creator borne on a group of attendant spirits, the personified powers of omnipotence, moves on toward his last, best work, the lord of his creation: the immortal spark, issuing from his extended arm, electrifies the new-formed being, who tremblingly alive, half raised half reclined, hastens to meet his Maker. In the formation of Eve the astonishment of life, just organised, is absorbed in the sublimer sentiment of adoration; perfect, though not all disengaged from the side of her dreaming mate, she moves with folded hands and humble dignity towards the majestic Form whose half raised hand attracts her—what words can express the equally bland and irresistible velocity of that mysterious Being, who forms the sun and moon, and already past, leaves the earth, compleatly formed, behind him? Here apposition is the symbol of immensity.[73]
From these specimens of invention exerted in the more numerous compositions of this sublime cycle, let me fix your attention for a few moments on the powers it displays in the single figures of the Prophets, those organs of embodied sentiment: their expression and attitude, whilst it exhibits the unequivocal marks of inspired contemplation in all; and with equal variety, energy, and delicacy, stamps character on each; exhibits in the occupation of the present moment the traces of the past and hints of the future. Esaiah, the image of inspiration, sublime and lofty, with an attitude expressive of the sacred trance in which meditation on the Messiah had immersed him, starts at the voice of an attendant genius, who seems to pronounce the words, ‘to us a child is born, to us a son is given.’ Daniel, the humbler image of eager diligence, transcribes from a volume held by a stripling, with a gesture natural to those who, absorbed in the progress of their subject, are heedless of convenience; his posture shews that he had inspected the volume from which now he is turned, and shall return to it immediately. Zachariah personifies consideration, he has read, and ponders on what he reads. Inquiry moves in the dignified activity of Joel; hastening to open a sacred scrowl, and to compare the scriptures with each other. Ezechiel, the fervid feature of fancy, the seer of resurrection, represented as on the field strewn with bones of the dead, points downward and asks, ‘can these bones live?’ the attendant angel, borne on the wind that agitates his locks and the prophet’s vestments, with raised arm and finger, pronounces, they shall rise; last, Jeremiah, subdued by grief and exhausted by lamentation, sinks in silent woe over the ruins of Jerusalem. Nor are the sibyls, those female oracles, less expressive, less individually marked—they are the echo, the counterpart of the prophets; Vigilance, Meditation, Instruction, Divination are personified. If the artist, who absorbed by the uniform power and magnitude of execution, saw only breadth and nature in their figures, must be told that he has discovered the least part of their excellence; the critic who charges them with affectation, can only be dismissed with our contempt.
On the immense plain of the last judgment, Michael Angelo has wound up the destiny of man, simply considered as the subject of religion, faithful or rebellious; and in one generic manner has distributed happiness and misery, the general feature of passions is given, and no more.—But had Raphael meditated that subject, he would undoubtedly have applied to our sympathies for his choice of imagery; he would have combined all possible emotions with the utmost variety of probable or real character: a father meeting his son, a mother torn from her daughter, lovers flying into each others arms, friends for ever separated, children accusing their parents, enemies reconciled; tyrants dragged before the tribunal by their subjects, conquerors hiding themselves from their victims of carnage; innocence declared, hypocrisy unmasked, atheism confounded, detected fraud, triumphant resignation; the most prominent features of connubial, fraternal, kindred connexion.—In a word, the heads of that infinite variety which Dante has minutely scattered over his poem—all domestic, politic, religious relations; whatever is not local in virtue and in vice: and the sublimity of the greatest of all events, would have been merely the minister of sympathies and passions[74].
If opinions be divided on the respective advantages and disadvantages of these two modes; if to some it should appear, though from consideration of the plan which guided Michael Angelo, I am far from subscribing to their notions, that the scenery of the last judgment, might have gained more by the dramatic introduction of varied pathos, than it would have lost by the dereliction of its generic simplicity: there can, I believe, be but one opinion with regard to the methods adopted by him and Raphael in the invention of the moment that characterises the creation of Eve: both artists applied for it to their own minds, but with very different success: the elevation of Michael Angelo’s soul, inspired by the operation of creation itself, furnished him at once with the feature that stamps on human nature its most glorious prerogative: whilst the characteristic subtilty, rather than sensibility of Raphael’s mind, in this instance, offered nothing but a frigid succedaneum; a symptom incident to all, when after the subsided astonishment on a great and sudden event, the mind recollecting itself, ponders on it with inquisitive surmise. In Michael Angelo, all self-consideration is absorbed in the sublimity of the sentiment which issues from the august Presence that attracts Eve; ‘her earthly,’ in Milton’s expression, ‘by his heavenly overpowered,’ pours itself in adoration: whilst in the inimitable cast of Adam’s figure, we trace the hint of that half conscious moment when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raphael, creation is complete—Eve is presented to Adam, now awake: but neither the new-born charms, the submissive grace and virgin purity of the beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance into effusions of love or gratitude; at ease reclined, with fingers pointing at himself and his new mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event that took place during his sleep, and to whisper the words ‘flesh of my flesh.’
Thus, but far better adapted, has Raphael personified Dialogue, moved the lips of Soliloquy, unbent or wrinkled the features, and arranged the limbs and gesture of Meditation, in the pictures of the Parnassus and of the school of Athens, parts of the immense allegoric drama that fills the stanzas, and displays the brightest ornament of the Vatican; the immortal monument of the towering ambition, unlimited patronage, and refined taste of Julius II. and Leo X., its cycle represents the origin, the progress, extent, and final triumph of church empire, or ecclesiastic government; in the first subject, of the Parnassus, Poetry led back to its origin and first duty, the herald and interpreter of a first Cause, in the universal language of imagery addressed to the senses, unites man, scattered and savage, in social and religious bands. What was the surmise of the eye and the wish of hearts, is gradually made the result of reason, in the characters of the school of Athens, by the researches of philosophy, which from bodies to mind, from corporeal harmony to moral fitness, and from the duties of society, ascends to the doctrine of God and hopes of immortality. Here revelation in its stricter sense commences, and conjecture becomes a glorious reality: in the composition of the dispute on the sacrament, the Saviour after ascension seated on his throne, the attested son of God and Man, surrounded by his types, the prophets, patriarchs, apostles and the hosts of heaven, institutes the mysteries and initiates in his sacrament the heads and presbyters of the church militant, who in the awful presence of their Master and the celestial synod, discuss, explain, propound his doctrine. That the sacred mystery shall clear all doubt and subdue all heresy, is taught in the miracle of the blood-stained wafer; that without arms, by the arm of Heaven itself, it shall release its votaries, and defeat its enemies, the deliverance of Peter, the overthrow of Heliodorus, the flight of Attila, the captive Saracens, bear testimony; that nature itself shall submit to its power and the elements obey its mandates, the checked conflagration of the Borgo, declares: till hastening to its ultimate triumphs, its union with the state, it is proclaimed by the vision of Constantine, confirmed by the rout of Maxentius, established by the imperial pupils receiving baptism, and submitting to accept his crown at the feet of the mitred pontiff.
Such is the rapid outline of the cycle painted or designed by Raphael on the compartments of the stanzas sacred to his name. Here is the mass of his powers in poetic conception and execution, here is every period of his style, his emancipation from the narrow shackles of Pietro Perugino, his discriminations of characteristic form, on to the heroic grandeur of his line. Here is that master-tone of fresco painting, the real instrument of history, which with its silver purity and breadth unites the glow of Titiano and Correggio’s tints. Every where we meet the superiority of genius, but more or less impressive, with more or less felicity in proportion as each subject was more or less susceptible of dramatic treatment. From the bland enthusiasm of the Parnassus, and the sedate or eager features of meditation in the school of Athens, to the sterner traits of dogmatic controversy in the dispute of the sacrament, and the symptoms of religious conviction or inflamed zeal at the mass of Bolsena. Not the miracle, as we have observed, the fears and terrours of humanity inspire and seize us at the conflagration of the Borgo: if in the Heliodorus the sublimity of the vision balances sympathy with astonishment, we follow the rapid ministers of grace to their revenge, less to rescue the temple from the gripe of sacrilege, than inspired by the palpitating graces, the helpless innocence, the defenceless beauty of the females and children scattered around; and thus we forget the vision of the labarum, the angels and Constantine in the battle, to plunge in the wave with Maxentius, or to share the agonies of the father who recognizes his own son in the enemy he slew.
With what propriety Raphael introduced portrait, though in its most dignified and elevated sense, into some compositions of the great work which we are contemplating, I shall not now discuss; the allegoric part of the work may account for it: he has, however, by its admission, stamped that branch of painting at once with its essential feature, character, and has assigned it its place and rank: ennobled by character, it rises to dramatic dignity, destitute of that, it sinks to mere mechanic dexterity, or floats, a bubble of fashion. Portrait is to historic painting in art, what physiognomy is to pathognomy in science; that shews the character and powers of the being which it delineates, in its formation and at rest: this shews it in exertion. Bembo, Bramante, Dante, Gonzaga, Savonarola, Raphael himself may be considered in the inferior light of mere characteristic ornament; but Julius the second authenticating the miracle at the mass of Bolsena, or borne into the temple, rather to authorize than to witness the punishment inflicted on its spoiler; Leo with his train calmly facing Attila, or deciding on his tribunal the fate of the captive Saracens, tell us by their presence that they are the heroes of the drama, that the action has been contrived for them, is subordinate to them, and has been composed to illustrate their character. For as in the epic, act and agent are subordinate to the maxim, and in pure history are mere organs of the fact; so the drama subordinates both fact and maxim to the agent, his character and passion: what in them was end is but the medium here.
Such were the principles on which he treated the beautiful tale of Amor and Psyche: the allegory of Apuleius became a drama under the hand of Raphael, though it must be owned, that with every charm of scenic gradation and lyric imagery, its characters, as exquisitely chosen as acutely discriminated, exhibit less the obstacles and real object of affection, and its final triumph over mere appetite and sexual instinct, than the voluptuous history of his own favourite passion. The faint light of the maxim vanishes in the splendour which expands before our fancy the enchanted circle of wanton dalliance and amorous attachment.