[84] I cannot quit this picture without observing, that it presents the most incontrovertible evidence of the incongruities arising from the jarring coalition of the grand and ornamental styles. The group of Lazarus may be said to contain the most valuable relic of the classic time of modern, and perhaps the only specimen left of M. Agnolo’s oil-painting: an opinion which will scarcely be disputed by him, who has examined the manner of the Sistine chapel, and in his mind compared it with the group of the Lazarus, and that with the style and treatment of the other parts.
[85] In a picture which he painted at Rome for Bindo Altoviti, it represented ‘Un Cristo quanto il vivo, levato di croce, e posto in terra a’ piedi della Madre; e nell’ aria Febo, che oscura la faccia del sole, e Diana quella della Luna. Nel paese poi, oscurato da queste Tenebre, si veggiono spezzarsi alcuni monti di pietra, mossi dal terremoto, e certi corpi morti di santi risorgendo, uscire de sepolcri in vari modi; il quale quadro, finito che fu, per sua grazia non dispiacque al maggior pittore, scultore, e architetto, che sia stato a’ tempi nostri passati?’ The compliment was not paid to M. Agnolo himself, for the word ‘passati’ tells that he was no more, but it levied a tribute on posterity.
Vita di Giorgio Vasari.
[86] A miracle means an act performed by virtue of an unknown law of Nature.
[87] The form, but not the soul, of Julio’s composition has been borrowed by Rubens, or the master of the well known picture in the gallery of Dulwich college. Few can be unacquainted with the work of Vandyke, spread by the best engravers of that school. The picture of Rembrandt is the chief ornament of the collection in the garden-house of the Schönborn family, in one of the suburbs of Vienna: has been etched on a large scale, and there is a copy of it in the gallery at Cassel. A circumstantial account of it may be found in the Eighth Letter, vol. iii. of Küttner’s Travels.
[88] Nella arte della pittura aggiunse costui alla maniera del colorire ad olio, una certa oscurità; donde banno dato i moderni gran forza e rilievo alle Loro figure. Vasari vita di Lion. da Vinci, p. 559. ed. 1550.
[89] In the greater part of the cartoons, it does not appear that chiaroscuro had more than an ordinary share of attention:
In the Miraculous Draught plain day-light prevails.
In the miracle at the Temple-gate a more forcible and more sublime effect would have been obtained from a cupola-light and pillars darkened on the fore-ground.
In the exceccation of Elymas, composition and expression owe little of their roundness and evidence to chiaroscuro.