FRA SEBASTIANO. My portrait of Vittoria Colonna.
MICHAEL ANGELO. It makes her look as she will look hereafter, When she becomes a saint!
FRA SEBASTIANO.
A noble woman!
MICHAEL ANGELO. Ah, these old hands can fashion fairer shapes In marble, and can paint diviner pictures, Since I have known her.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
And you like this picture.
And yet it is in oil; which you detest.
MICHAEL ANGELO. When that barbarian Jan Van Eyck discovered The use of oil in painting, he degraded His art into a handicraft, and made it Sign-painting, merely, for a country inn Or wayside wine-shop. 'T is an art for women, Or for such leisurely and idle people As you, Fra Bastiano. Nature paints not In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven With sunset; and the lovely forms of clouds And flying vapors.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
And how soon they fade!
Behold yon line of roofs and belfries painted
Upon the golden background of the sky,
Like a Byzantine picture, or a portrait
Of Cimabue. See how hard the outline,
Sharp-cut and clear, not rounded into shadow.
Yet that is nature.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
She is always right.
The picture that approaches sculpture nearest
Is the best picture.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Leonardo thinks
The open air too bright. We ought to paint
As if the sun were shining through a mist.
'T is easier done in oil than in distemper.
MICHAEL ANGELO. Do not revive again the old dispute; I have an excellent memory for forgetting, But I still feel the hurt. Wounds are not healed By the unbending of the bow that made them.