DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0350
RAPHAEL
In Heinse there lived that sense for the primeval powers of creation and of art
without a consciousness of which every cult of the Classical is condemned to
remain academic. “Nature”, invoked in many writings on aesthetics before and
after him, had for him a profound significance, as of a leaven, in the creating
mind: nature was for him the measure of poetic aptitude and of the ability to
apprehend the beyond.
“In every work of art seek for nature first and then for art, if you wish to
judge of it rightly. Those who do otherwise are going downhill in search of the
source and chattering about it like fools.”1 In Raphael and his assistants, as
in Rubens, he sees “plenitude and fire of the same feeling . . . absorbed into
his soil and brought to birth”.2 “He was in fact a clear, still, deep water
in which nature at her best was mirrored.”3 For Heinse Raphael with his
intense desire for uniformity was a “poet”. “Whoever discovers in what
he has seen and heard a whole with all its parts, and has the power of repre-
senting it deceptively as if it were real, is a poet.” Others remain at the stage
of the chronicler and the writer of history.
“The most difficult thing in art is to make life perceptible, movement in full-
toned unison through the entire body of the present moment; this is the function
of feeling, the strong, warm feeling of a human being of the utmost sensibility
and serenity”.4 “He had the absolutely good general understanding of a man
of the people, and the most natural aspect of every occurrence instantly pre-
sented itself to his thoughts and perceptions, and his creative imagination and
robust style, in which everything is complete, with nothing left out, made the whole
immediately living.”5
Such an “understanding of a man of the people” was the source out of
which arose the beautiful description of the Canigiani Madonna, then at
Dusseldorf, entirely concentrated on the poetry of the picture: “Mary is so
holy and as though in a dream; her feelings are Platonic and yet at the same time
she is such a young, heart-stealing maiden that she seems as if by rights this
world was no place for her to awake in. Joseph gazes with meditative brow
upon the little St John, upon him and the little Jesus, like Newton on the
courses of the comets.”—“The beauties of Raphael, because they consist rather
in spirit than in colour, call for a more practised sense and a more deeply
penetrating sharpsightedness; and this is the reason why many pass on quite
coldly from the latter as from something even fundamentally unimportant.”
Quite apart from the effect thus produced, which derives its refreshing and con-
vincing power from comparison with life, Heinse recognised Raphael among all
great masters as “the only one who brought belief out of obscurity and set it in a
1 Briefe aus Dusseldorf Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, p. 121.
2 Ibid., vol. VIII, p. 341.
3 Italienische Reise.
4 From Italienische Reise, Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, p. 510.
5 Briefe aus Dusseldorf, Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, pp. 265!., 301, 309, also Ardinghello.
332
In Heinse there lived that sense for the primeval powers of creation and of art
without a consciousness of which every cult of the Classical is condemned to
remain academic. “Nature”, invoked in many writings on aesthetics before and
after him, had for him a profound significance, as of a leaven, in the creating
mind: nature was for him the measure of poetic aptitude and of the ability to
apprehend the beyond.
“In every work of art seek for nature first and then for art, if you wish to
judge of it rightly. Those who do otherwise are going downhill in search of the
source and chattering about it like fools.”1 In Raphael and his assistants, as
in Rubens, he sees “plenitude and fire of the same feeling . . . absorbed into
his soil and brought to birth”.2 “He was in fact a clear, still, deep water
in which nature at her best was mirrored.”3 For Heinse Raphael with his
intense desire for uniformity was a “poet”. “Whoever discovers in what
he has seen and heard a whole with all its parts, and has the power of repre-
senting it deceptively as if it were real, is a poet.” Others remain at the stage
of the chronicler and the writer of history.
“The most difficult thing in art is to make life perceptible, movement in full-
toned unison through the entire body of the present moment; this is the function
of feeling, the strong, warm feeling of a human being of the utmost sensibility
and serenity”.4 “He had the absolutely good general understanding of a man
of the people, and the most natural aspect of every occurrence instantly pre-
sented itself to his thoughts and perceptions, and his creative imagination and
robust style, in which everything is complete, with nothing left out, made the whole
immediately living.”5
Such an “understanding of a man of the people” was the source out of
which arose the beautiful description of the Canigiani Madonna, then at
Dusseldorf, entirely concentrated on the poetry of the picture: “Mary is so
holy and as though in a dream; her feelings are Platonic and yet at the same time
she is such a young, heart-stealing maiden that she seems as if by rights this
world was no place for her to awake in. Joseph gazes with meditative brow
upon the little St John, upon him and the little Jesus, like Newton on the
courses of the comets.”—“The beauties of Raphael, because they consist rather
in spirit than in colour, call for a more practised sense and a more deeply
penetrating sharpsightedness; and this is the reason why many pass on quite
coldly from the latter as from something even fundamentally unimportant.”
Quite apart from the effect thus produced, which derives its refreshing and con-
vincing power from comparison with life, Heinse recognised Raphael among all
great masters as “the only one who brought belief out of obscurity and set it in a
1 Briefe aus Dusseldorf Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, p. 121.
2 Ibid., vol. VIII, p. 341.
3 Italienische Reise.
4 From Italienische Reise, Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, p. 510.
5 Briefe aus Dusseldorf, Werke, ed. Schiiddekopf, vol. VIII, pp. 265!., 301, 309, also Ardinghello.
332