DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42129#0023
COMPARED WITH THOSE BY RAPHAEL.
XI
In wliat we have said with regard to the principle of adaptation
observable in these decorations, our object has been to modify the harsh
judgment pronounced by Vitruvius and Pliny, and subsequently by so
many other critics, on Arabesques in the Pompeian style. Let it be
remembered, that if it was desirable to produce an apparent extent of
space and a wide range for the fancy, without exactly intending or
wishing to control the precise direction of the latter, it must surely
have been allowable to make use of the readiest means, and what other
kind of representation could have been better adapted thereto, than the
variety of Arabesques ? They constituted, so to speak, the fairy-world,
brought before the visual sense by means of colours, and which in later
times was transferred into the literature of tales and romances. In both
instances the hare truth would appear cold, monotonous, and dry ; and
when a vigorous mind seizes upon the treasures of nature, howsoever
playfully commingled, and re-produces them with their characteristic
qualities, provided it be done in select forms agreeably arranged, and in
lively and harmonious colours, who could feel surprised that, despite
the ire of the venerable Roman architect, and as he himself laments,
“ every one who has seen, these extravagances, far from denouncing them,
is invariably pleased with them.”
Before we return to the Arabesques of Raphael and his school, we
wish, in concluding our remarks upon their predecessors, to inquire into
the remarkable fact, confirmatory of our views, how far the mind and
practice of this immortal genius became influenced by the remains of
antique decorations (of inferior merit) found in the baths of Titus.
Having until then studied the paintings of the ancients only in marble
statues, the faint and almost obliterated sketches of the wall-paintings of
the baths gave him an idea of the art in a higher application, which his
exquisite feeling partly evolved from it. The unbounded enthusiasm
which this great master and his numerous followers manifested in this
instance, furnishes the strongest presumptive proof of the admiration
and praise which these distinguished artists wrnuld not have failed to
b2
XI
In wliat we have said with regard to the principle of adaptation
observable in these decorations, our object has been to modify the harsh
judgment pronounced by Vitruvius and Pliny, and subsequently by so
many other critics, on Arabesques in the Pompeian style. Let it be
remembered, that if it was desirable to produce an apparent extent of
space and a wide range for the fancy, without exactly intending or
wishing to control the precise direction of the latter, it must surely
have been allowable to make use of the readiest means, and what other
kind of representation could have been better adapted thereto, than the
variety of Arabesques ? They constituted, so to speak, the fairy-world,
brought before the visual sense by means of colours, and which in later
times was transferred into the literature of tales and romances. In both
instances the hare truth would appear cold, monotonous, and dry ; and
when a vigorous mind seizes upon the treasures of nature, howsoever
playfully commingled, and re-produces them with their characteristic
qualities, provided it be done in select forms agreeably arranged, and in
lively and harmonious colours, who could feel surprised that, despite
the ire of the venerable Roman architect, and as he himself laments,
“ every one who has seen, these extravagances, far from denouncing them,
is invariably pleased with them.”
Before we return to the Arabesques of Raphael and his school, we
wish, in concluding our remarks upon their predecessors, to inquire into
the remarkable fact, confirmatory of our views, how far the mind and
practice of this immortal genius became influenced by the remains of
antique decorations (of inferior merit) found in the baths of Titus.
Having until then studied the paintings of the ancients only in marble
statues, the faint and almost obliterated sketches of the wall-paintings of
the baths gave him an idea of the art in a higher application, which his
exquisite feeling partly evolved from it. The unbounded enthusiasm
which this great master and his numerous followers manifested in this
instance, furnishes the strongest presumptive proof of the admiration
and praise which these distinguished artists wrnuld not have failed to
b2