DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0429
INTRODUCTION.
385
that splendid, vivid sketch of Tintoretto, the Miracle of
St. Mark—and Sir Joshua stands it bravely, does not lose
a tone or a tint; but anything else painted in the last fifty
years would look like chalk and brickdust beside it. A
private collection confined to works of one particular class-
as the Queen’s Gallery, or Sir Robert Peel’s, is less ex-
citing and agreeable than one in which the schools of art
are mingled; but to mingle them with judgment is the
difficulty. In short, it is the highest criterion of an exact,
as well as an elevated taste in art, to select a small collec-
tion of pictures of various date, style, and feeling; to hang
them in the same room; and so to hang them, that neither
the eye shall be offended by inharmonious propinquity, nor
the mind disturbed by unfit associations.
The small but most beautiful collection which we are
now to consider, is a very perfect example of all that
has been alluded to. It comprises about seventy pic-
tures, which have been brought together at intervals
during a period of nearly fifty years. In its gradual form-
ation, we trace the same union of exquisite taste with
good sense—the same symmetry of mind, in short, which
has apparently governed the whole existence of the poet
who formed it. He appears to have arranged his cabinet
and his life on the same plan, and both are the true reflec-
tion of his genius: everywhere the graceful and the ele-
vated prevail — everywhere the feeling of harmonious
beauty; simplicity polished into consummate elegance,
pathos which stops short of pain. The works of art “ which
breathe the soul of inspiration round,” do not so much
adorn the poet’s home, as derive a consecration from it.
For half a century the greatest, the wisest, the most gifted,
the most beautiful of our land, have been congregated
here; and he who has so long presided in the midst of this
brilliant circle, and seen “ star after star decay,” might
look up at the figures in the gorgeous banquet scene of
s
385
that splendid, vivid sketch of Tintoretto, the Miracle of
St. Mark—and Sir Joshua stands it bravely, does not lose
a tone or a tint; but anything else painted in the last fifty
years would look like chalk and brickdust beside it. A
private collection confined to works of one particular class-
as the Queen’s Gallery, or Sir Robert Peel’s, is less ex-
citing and agreeable than one in which the schools of art
are mingled; but to mingle them with judgment is the
difficulty. In short, it is the highest criterion of an exact,
as well as an elevated taste in art, to select a small collec-
tion of pictures of various date, style, and feeling; to hang
them in the same room; and so to hang them, that neither
the eye shall be offended by inharmonious propinquity, nor
the mind disturbed by unfit associations.
The small but most beautiful collection which we are
now to consider, is a very perfect example of all that
has been alluded to. It comprises about seventy pic-
tures, which have been brought together at intervals
during a period of nearly fifty years. In its gradual form-
ation, we trace the same union of exquisite taste with
good sense—the same symmetry of mind, in short, which
has apparently governed the whole existence of the poet
who formed it. He appears to have arranged his cabinet
and his life on the same plan, and both are the true reflec-
tion of his genius: everywhere the graceful and the ele-
vated prevail — everywhere the feeling of harmonious
beauty; simplicity polished into consummate elegance,
pathos which stops short of pain. The works of art “ which
breathe the soul of inspiration round,” do not so much
adorn the poet’s home, as derive a consecration from it.
For half a century the greatest, the wisest, the most gifted,
the most beautiful of our land, have been congregated
here; and he who has so long presided in the midst of this
brilliant circle, and seen “ star after star decay,” might
look up at the figures in the gorgeous banquet scene of
s