DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0083
THE QUEEN’S GALLERY.
39
poured forth on his canvas I If he painted heavy forms, he at least
gave them souls, and animated them -with all his own exuberance of
vitality and volition. No painter but Raphael has equalled him in
dramatic power—in the art of connecting, by sympathetic action and
passion, his most complicated groups, and with them, in spirit, the fas-
cinated spectator.”* His pictures in this gallery afford an opportunity
of studying him under almost all the aspects which art or nature
suggested to his fertile fancy and ready hand—history, portrait, land-
scape ; and the first to which I shall direct attention, is one of those
magnificent pasticci, blending history, allegory, poetry, into one
splendid creation, in which Rubens delighted, and painted as none
other ever did before or since.]
95 Pythagoras.—A large composition of eleven figures, 1
full length and life size; with fruit and animals painted by
Franz Snyders.
Pythagoras is seated under a tree, apparently recom-
mending temperance to his disciples, three of whom, with
fine thinking heads, stand on his right hand. To the left
are nymphs, plucking fruits from the branches, and fauns
are visible, peeping through the foliage in the background,
while along the foreground is poured forth a profusion of
fruits, as if flung from the lap of Plenty. The men, as is
usual with Rubens, are full of masculine energy and thought;
the women painted with all his characteristic luxuriance.
The manner in which every variety of colour is here brought
together under the broad daylight, producing an effect at
once the most gorgeous and the most harmonious-, is per-
fectly wonderful. The whole picture glows like a bed of
flowers, and conveys just that impression which the painter
wished to give of light and life, of happy luxuriant nature,
and grand and beautiful humanity.
Judging from the style of the execution, which is in
Rubens’s latest manner, I should presume this picture to
have.been painted, in conjunction with his friend Snyders,
about 1635. He kept it in his own possession, as he did
many other pictures which he particularly liked, for he
was rich, and loved his art even more for its own sake,
than for the wealth and honours it had procured him. In
Preface to the Essay on the Life and Genius of Rubens,
39
poured forth on his canvas I If he painted heavy forms, he at least
gave them souls, and animated them -with all his own exuberance of
vitality and volition. No painter but Raphael has equalled him in
dramatic power—in the art of connecting, by sympathetic action and
passion, his most complicated groups, and with them, in spirit, the fas-
cinated spectator.”* His pictures in this gallery afford an opportunity
of studying him under almost all the aspects which art or nature
suggested to his fertile fancy and ready hand—history, portrait, land-
scape ; and the first to which I shall direct attention, is one of those
magnificent pasticci, blending history, allegory, poetry, into one
splendid creation, in which Rubens delighted, and painted as none
other ever did before or since.]
95 Pythagoras.—A large composition of eleven figures, 1
full length and life size; with fruit and animals painted by
Franz Snyders.
Pythagoras is seated under a tree, apparently recom-
mending temperance to his disciples, three of whom, with
fine thinking heads, stand on his right hand. To the left
are nymphs, plucking fruits from the branches, and fauns
are visible, peeping through the foliage in the background,
while along the foreground is poured forth a profusion of
fruits, as if flung from the lap of Plenty. The men, as is
usual with Rubens, are full of masculine energy and thought;
the women painted with all his characteristic luxuriance.
The manner in which every variety of colour is here brought
together under the broad daylight, producing an effect at
once the most gorgeous and the most harmonious-, is per-
fectly wonderful. The whole picture glows like a bed of
flowers, and conveys just that impression which the painter
wished to give of light and life, of happy luxuriant nature,
and grand and beautiful humanity.
Judging from the style of the execution, which is in
Rubens’s latest manner, I should presume this picture to
have.been painted, in conjunction with his friend Snyders,
about 1635. He kept it in his own possession, as he did
many other pictures which he particularly liked, for he
was rich, and loved his art even more for its own sake,
than for the wealth and honours it had procured him. In
Preface to the Essay on the Life and Genius of Rubens,