DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75271#0061
( 49 )
ful improvement; they vary, enliven, and enrich the work; as any
one may perceive that will imagine the pictures as they must have
been, had Rubens been terrified by the objections, which he cer-
tainly must have foreseen would be made afterwards, and so had
left all these heathen gods and goddesses, and the rest of the fictitious
figures out of the composition.
I will add but one way of expreslion more, and that is, plain
writing.
Polygnotus, in the paintings made by him in the Temple of
Delphos, wrote the names of those whom he represented.
The old Italian, and German masters improved upon this; the
figures they made were speaking figures, they had labels coming out
of their mouths, with that written in them which they were intended
to be made to say; but even Rafaelle, and Annibale Caracci, have
condescended to write rather than leave any ambiguity, or obscurity
in their work : thus the name of Sappho is written to shew it was
she, and not one of the muses intended in the Parnassus: and in the
Gallery of Farnese, that Anchises might not be mistaken for Adonis,
Genus unde Latinum was written.
In the carton of Elymas, the Sorcerer, it does not appear that
the Pro-consul was converted, otherwise than by the writing; nor
do I conceive how it was possible to have expressed that important
circumstance so properly any other way.
In the Pest of the same master, graved by Marc Antonio, there
is a line out of Virgil which, as it is very proper (the plague being
that described by that poet, as will be seen presently) admirably
heightens the expression, though without it, it is one of the most
wonderful insiances of this part of the art that, perhaps, is in the
world in black and white, and the utmost that humane wit can con-
trive; there is not the most minute circumstance throughout the
whole design which does not help to express the misery there in-
tended
ful improvement; they vary, enliven, and enrich the work; as any
one may perceive that will imagine the pictures as they must have
been, had Rubens been terrified by the objections, which he cer-
tainly must have foreseen would be made afterwards, and so had
left all these heathen gods and goddesses, and the rest of the fictitious
figures out of the composition.
I will add but one way of expreslion more, and that is, plain
writing.
Polygnotus, in the paintings made by him in the Temple of
Delphos, wrote the names of those whom he represented.
The old Italian, and German masters improved upon this; the
figures they made were speaking figures, they had labels coming out
of their mouths, with that written in them which they were intended
to be made to say; but even Rafaelle, and Annibale Caracci, have
condescended to write rather than leave any ambiguity, or obscurity
in their work : thus the name of Sappho is written to shew it was
she, and not one of the muses intended in the Parnassus: and in the
Gallery of Farnese, that Anchises might not be mistaken for Adonis,
Genus unde Latinum was written.
In the carton of Elymas, the Sorcerer, it does not appear that
the Pro-consul was converted, otherwise than by the writing; nor
do I conceive how it was possible to have expressed that important
circumstance so properly any other way.
In the Pest of the same master, graved by Marc Antonio, there
is a line out of Virgil which, as it is very proper (the plague being
that described by that poet, as will be seen presently) admirably
heightens the expression, though without it, it is one of the most
wonderful insiances of this part of the art that, perhaps, is in the
world in black and white, and the utmost that humane wit can con-
trive; there is not the most minute circumstance throughout the
whole design which does not help to express the misery there in-
tended