215. Things came to Raffaelle and Shakspeare; Michael Angelo and Milton came to things.
216. The women of Michael Angelo are the sex.
Coroll.—Eve emerging from the side of Adam; Eve reclining under the tree of knowledge, in the Capella Sistina; the figures of Night and Dawn on the tombs of the Medici, are pure generic forms, little discriminated by character, and more expressive by action than emotion of features; solidity without heaviness separates them from the females in the Last Judgment, which, with the exception of the Madonna and St. Catharine, are less beholden to grace than anatomy. The Cartoon of the Leda proves that he was not inattentive to the detail of female charms, but beauty did not often visit his slumbers, guide his hand, or interrupt the gravity of his meditation.
217. The women of Raffaelle are either his own mistress, or mothers.
Coroll.—This relates chiefly to his Madonnas—Of his saints the St. Cecilia at Bologna has most of antique beauty, and, whether imitated or conceived, resembles the Niobe; but pride is absorbed in devotion, she is the enraptured victim of divine love, and glows with celestial fire: the goddesses of the Farnesina, however gracefully imagined, are too ponderous for aërial forms and amorous conceits.
218. The women of Correggio are seraglio beauties.
Coroll.—The enchantment of the Magdalen, in the picture of the St. Jerome in the Pilotta at Parma, is produced by chiaroscuro and attitude. Sensuality personified is the general character of his females, and the grace of his children, less naiveté than grimace, the caricature of jollity.