DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6915#0107
MONUMENTAL ALTO-RELIEVO:
designed, and executed in marble,
BY
JOHN FLAX MAN, ESQ. R.A.
THE SUBJECT,
" THY KINGDOM COME."
Regarding the Fine Arts as objects of Commerce, the patriotic Statesman and
enlightened Amateur will consider it a duty to cultivate them for the industry
and wealth which they are calculated to engender : but estimating them by the
higher scale of intellect, they will more duly appreciate their value, and promote
their advancement as fertile sources of rational pleasure and mental refinement.
Even where no lesson of knowledge or virtue is conveyed by the artist, a
peculiar delight is often derived from the bland and harmonious arrangement
of colour, light and shade, and by a select and graceful disposure of form. By
means of the latter, and most valuable element of art, Mr. Flaxman's genius,
like the mid-day sun shining on a waste, can confer pleasure in a representation
of the simplest objects; but it is only employed worthy of its powers when
exercised on an elevated subject, like that before us, in which the dignity and
happy destination of man is designated from one of the pious wishes breathed
in the comprehensive prayer of the great author of Christianity.
Grouping,----The Sculptor's judgment in grouping is here so conspicuous, that
we can hardly conceive an alteration of a single member of the piece that
would not injure the general effect. Thus to combine a number of figures, so
as to be not only pleasing but unexceptionable, manifests an accomplished
designed, and executed in marble,
BY
JOHN FLAX MAN, ESQ. R.A.
THE SUBJECT,
" THY KINGDOM COME."
Regarding the Fine Arts as objects of Commerce, the patriotic Statesman and
enlightened Amateur will consider it a duty to cultivate them for the industry
and wealth which they are calculated to engender : but estimating them by the
higher scale of intellect, they will more duly appreciate their value, and promote
their advancement as fertile sources of rational pleasure and mental refinement.
Even where no lesson of knowledge or virtue is conveyed by the artist, a
peculiar delight is often derived from the bland and harmonious arrangement
of colour, light and shade, and by a select and graceful disposure of form. By
means of the latter, and most valuable element of art, Mr. Flaxman's genius,
like the mid-day sun shining on a waste, can confer pleasure in a representation
of the simplest objects; but it is only employed worthy of its powers when
exercised on an elevated subject, like that before us, in which the dignity and
happy destination of man is designated from one of the pious wishes breathed
in the comprehensive prayer of the great author of Christianity.
Grouping,----The Sculptor's judgment in grouping is here so conspicuous, that
we can hardly conceive an alteration of a single member of the piece that
would not injure the general effect. Thus to combine a number of figures, so
as to be not only pleasing but unexceptionable, manifests an accomplished