Reddiderit junctura novum.——
Q. Horat. Flacci de A. P. v. 47.
[76] Matt. 17. 5. 6. See Fiorillo, geschichte, &c. 104. seq.
[77] The vision on Tabor, as represented here, is the most characteristic produced by modern art. Whether we consider the action of the apostles overpowered by the divine effulgence and divided between adoration and astonishment; or the forms of the prophets ascending like flame, and attracted by the lucid centre, or the majesty of Jesus himself, whose countenance, is the only one we know, expressive of his superhuman nature. That the unison of such powers, should not, for once, have disarmed the burlesque of the French critic, rouses equal surprise and indignation.
[78] The group in the Ludovisi, ever since its discovery, absurdly misnamed Pætus and Arria, notwithstanding some dissonance of taste and execution, may with more plausibility claim the title of Hæmon and Antigone.
[79] The whole of the gallery of Luxemburg by Rubens is but a branch of its magnificence: general as the elements, universal and permanent as the affections of human nature, allegory breaks the fetters of time, it unites with boundless sway, mythologic, feodal, local incongruities, fleeting modes of society and fugitive fashions: thus, in the picture of Rubens, Minerva, who instructs, the Graces that surround the royal maiden at the poetic fount, are not what they are in Homer, the real tutress of Telemachus, the real dressers of Venus, they are the symbols only of the education which the princess received. In that sublime design of Michael Agnolo, where a figure is roused by a descending genius from his repose on a globe, on which he yet reclines, and with surprize discovers the phantoms of the passions which he courted, unmasked in wild confusion flitting round him, M. Agnolo was less ambitious to express the nature of a dream, or to bespeak our attention to its picturesque effect and powerful contrasts, than to impress us with the lesson, that all is vanity and life a farce, unless engaged by virtue and the pursuits of mind.
[80] L’Aurora Sonnacchiosa.
[81] Speaking of the figure of Christ by Raphael in the Madonna del Spasimo, he calls it ‘Una Figura d’un Carattere fra quel di Giove, e quello d’Apollo; quale effettivamente deve esser quello, che corrisponde a Cristo, aggiungendovi soltanto l’espressione accidentale della passione, in cui si rappresenta.’ Opere 11. 83.
[82] It is engraved by Villamena.
[83] The composition, and in some degree the lines, but neither its tone nor effect, may be found among the etchings of Le Fevre.