DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0140
136
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
ambiguity of another and of a more unpleasant
kind.
The figure of Christ is wonderfully noble in con-
ception and treatment; the heads of the apostles
finely diversified; in some we see only affectionate
acquiescence, duteous submission ; in others won-
der, displeasure, and jealous discontent. The
figures of the apostles are in the cartoon happily
relieved from each other by variety of local tint,
which cannot be given in a print, and hence the
heavy effect of the composition when studied through
the engraving only.
These are the subjects of the famous Cartoons
of Raphael. To describe the effect of the light
and sketchy treatment, so easy, and yet so large
and grand in style, we shall borrow the words of
an eloquent writer.
“ Compared with these,” says Hazlitt, as finely
as truly, “ all other pictures look like oil and var-
nish ; we are stopped and attracted by the colour-
ing, the pencilling, the finishing, the instrumentali-
ties of art; but here the painter seems to have
flung his mind upon the canvas. His thoughts,
his great ideas alone, prevail; there is nothing
between us and the subject; we look through a
frame and see Scripture histories, and are made
actual spectators in miraculous events. Not to
speak it profanely, they are a sort of a revelation
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
ambiguity of another and of a more unpleasant
kind.
The figure of Christ is wonderfully noble in con-
ception and treatment; the heads of the apostles
finely diversified; in some we see only affectionate
acquiescence, duteous submission ; in others won-
der, displeasure, and jealous discontent. The
figures of the apostles are in the cartoon happily
relieved from each other by variety of local tint,
which cannot be given in a print, and hence the
heavy effect of the composition when studied through
the engraving only.
These are the subjects of the famous Cartoons
of Raphael. To describe the effect of the light
and sketchy treatment, so easy, and yet so large
and grand in style, we shall borrow the words of
an eloquent writer.
“ Compared with these,” says Hazlitt, as finely
as truly, “ all other pictures look like oil and var-
nish ; we are stopped and attracted by the colour-
ing, the pencilling, the finishing, the instrumentali-
ties of art; but here the painter seems to have
flung his mind upon the canvas. His thoughts,
his great ideas alone, prevail; there is nothing
between us and the subject; we look through a
frame and see Scripture histories, and are made
actual spectators in miraculous events. Not to
speak it profanely, they are a sort of a revelation