DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0128
84
THE BRIDGEWATER GALLERY.
extinct :—is extinct !—was extinct, three centuries ago.
Raphael was the last who painted the “ Madre di Dio. ’
Of his successors, some have given us beauty ; others,
majesty ; with more or less tenderness, meekness, and
grace: not one among them has embodied the divine. The
distinction may be here seen and felt.
Here, too, another great painter may be studied—Titian.
But, as illustrating the Venetian school, he stands alone ;
and the opportunity of tracing, in his great forerunners,
Bellini and Giorgione, the influences which formed his
early style; and in his Venetian compeers and successors,
the influences exercised by himself, is wanting. The
beautiful “ Allegory of Life” is an instance of Titian’s most
poetical style, and of the purest simplicity in conception.
The “ Diana and Acteon,” and the “ Diana and Calisto,”
are conceived, on the contrary, with the utmost luxuriance
of fancy. It is lamentable that the latter picture has suf-
fered so dreadfully from injudicious treatment, that the har-
mony of the colouring has been nearly effaced ; yet the
vivid beauty of the composition remains. The portrait of
Clement VII. bears out Titian’s fame in portraiture, though
it is not his best work in this style. Of his brave old
compeer, Tintoretto, there are two magnificent portraits.
The Lombard painters are not well represented, there
being nothing of importance from the schools of Correggio
and Lionardo da Vinci.
The Carracci school can nowhere be studied to more
advantage. The great Pieta of Ludovico, is, I think, the
grandest example in the world of that combination of
various excellences which this painter and his scholars
aimed at and achieved—fine drawing, fine colour, fine
chiaroscuro, great solemnity of sentiment, with something
a little too academic in attitude and effect. Turning from
this, we have the St. Gregory, of Annibale Carracci ;—a
picture full of technical merit of every kind, but in its
cold magnificence a signal example of what the Carracci
THE BRIDGEWATER GALLERY.
extinct :—is extinct !—was extinct, three centuries ago.
Raphael was the last who painted the “ Madre di Dio. ’
Of his successors, some have given us beauty ; others,
majesty ; with more or less tenderness, meekness, and
grace: not one among them has embodied the divine. The
distinction may be here seen and felt.
Here, too, another great painter may be studied—Titian.
But, as illustrating the Venetian school, he stands alone ;
and the opportunity of tracing, in his great forerunners,
Bellini and Giorgione, the influences which formed his
early style; and in his Venetian compeers and successors,
the influences exercised by himself, is wanting. The
beautiful “ Allegory of Life” is an instance of Titian’s most
poetical style, and of the purest simplicity in conception.
The “ Diana and Acteon,” and the “ Diana and Calisto,”
are conceived, on the contrary, with the utmost luxuriance
of fancy. It is lamentable that the latter picture has suf-
fered so dreadfully from injudicious treatment, that the har-
mony of the colouring has been nearly effaced ; yet the
vivid beauty of the composition remains. The portrait of
Clement VII. bears out Titian’s fame in portraiture, though
it is not his best work in this style. Of his brave old
compeer, Tintoretto, there are two magnificent portraits.
The Lombard painters are not well represented, there
being nothing of importance from the schools of Correggio
and Lionardo da Vinci.
The Carracci school can nowhere be studied to more
advantage. The great Pieta of Ludovico, is, I think, the
grandest example in the world of that combination of
various excellences which this painter and his scholars
aimed at and achieved—fine drawing, fine colour, fine
chiaroscuro, great solemnity of sentiment, with something
a little too academic in attitude and effect. Turning from
this, we have the St. Gregory, of Annibale Carracci ;—a
picture full of technical merit of every kind, but in its
cold magnificence a signal example of what the Carracci