DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0279
INTRODUCTION.
235
of his own vehement and abounding fancy; in great part
the work of his own right hand. In these multifarious
creations, embracing almost every aspect of life and
nature, what amazing versatility of power as displayed in
the conception of his subjects—what fertility of invention
in the various treatment—what ardent, breathing, blooming
life—what pomp and potency of colour and light, has been
poured forth on his canvass ! If he painted heavy forms,
has he not given them souls ? and animated them with all
his own exuberance of vitality and volition ? Whatever
his personages enact, they do with all the earnestness of
the soul which conceived, and all the energy of the hand
which formed them. Dr. Waagen, in his Essay on Rubens,
dwells on his dramatic power as the first and grand cha-
racteristic of his genius; and who ever excelled him in
telling a story? in connecting, by sympathetic action or
passion, his most complicate groups, and with them, in
spirit, the fascinated spectator? And though thus dra-
matic in the strongest sense, yet he is so without approach-
ing the verge of what we call theatrical. With all his
flaunting luxuriance of colour, and occasional exaggeration
in form, we cannot apply that word to him. Le Brun is
theatrical: Rubens never. His sins are those of excess of
power and daring; but he is ever the reverse of the flimsy,
the artificial, or the superficial. His gay magnificence
and sumptuous fancy are always accompanied by a certain
impress and assurance of power and grandeur, which often
reaches the sublime, even where it stops short of the ideal.
“ Rubens is the most popular, because the most intelli-
gible, of painters. Goethe has laid down the axiom, that
‘ every work of art, to be consummate in its way, must
leave something for the intellect to divine.’ If this be
true, as I think it is, Rubens must be pronounced so far
deficient, that in his works there is no hidden significance
of sentiment or beauty beyond what is at once apparent to
235
of his own vehement and abounding fancy; in great part
the work of his own right hand. In these multifarious
creations, embracing almost every aspect of life and
nature, what amazing versatility of power as displayed in
the conception of his subjects—what fertility of invention
in the various treatment—what ardent, breathing, blooming
life—what pomp and potency of colour and light, has been
poured forth on his canvass ! If he painted heavy forms,
has he not given them souls ? and animated them with all
his own exuberance of vitality and volition ? Whatever
his personages enact, they do with all the earnestness of
the soul which conceived, and all the energy of the hand
which formed them. Dr. Waagen, in his Essay on Rubens,
dwells on his dramatic power as the first and grand cha-
racteristic of his genius; and who ever excelled him in
telling a story? in connecting, by sympathetic action or
passion, his most complicate groups, and with them, in
spirit, the fascinated spectator? And though thus dra-
matic in the strongest sense, yet he is so without approach-
ing the verge of what we call theatrical. With all his
flaunting luxuriance of colour, and occasional exaggeration
in form, we cannot apply that word to him. Le Brun is
theatrical: Rubens never. His sins are those of excess of
power and daring; but he is ever the reverse of the flimsy,
the artificial, or the superficial. His gay magnificence
and sumptuous fancy are always accompanied by a certain
impress and assurance of power and grandeur, which often
reaches the sublime, even where it stops short of the ideal.
“ Rubens is the most popular, because the most intelli-
gible, of painters. Goethe has laid down the axiom, that
‘ every work of art, to be consummate in its way, must
leave something for the intellect to divine.’ If this be
true, as I think it is, Rubens must be pronounced so far
deficient, that in his works there is no hidden significance
of sentiment or beauty beyond what is at once apparent to