They Come As Fresh One After The Other As A Set Of
Variations By Handel.
Each one of them is a little architectural
gem, while the figures they contain are sometimes very good, though
on the whole not equal to those at Varallo.
The subjects are the
mysteries of joy, namely, the Annunciation (immediately after the
first great arch is passed), the Salutation of Mary by Elizabeth,
the Nativity, the Presentation, and the Disputing with the Doctors.
Then there is a second arch, after which come the mysteries of
grief - the Agony in the Garden, the Flagellation, the Crowning with
Thorns, the Ascent to Calvary, and the Crucifixion. Passing
through a third arch, we come to the mysteries of glory - the
Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the
Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The Dispute in the Temple is the
chapel which left the deepest impression upon us. Here the various
attitudes and expressions of the doctors are admirably rendered.
There is one man, I think he must have been a broad churchman and
have taken in the "Spectator"; his arms are folded, and he is
smiling a little, with his head on one side. He is not prepared,
he seems to say, to deny that there is a certain element of truth
in what this young person has been saying, but it is very shallow,
and in all essential points has been refuted over and over again;
he has seen these things come and go so often, &c. But all the
doctors are good. The Christ is weak, and so are the Joseph and
Mary in the background; in fact, throughout the whole series of
chapels the wicked or worldly and indifferent people are well done,
while the saints are a feeble folk: the sculptor evidently neither
understood them nor liked them, and could never get beyond
silliness; but the artist who has lately done them up has made them
still weaker and sillier by giving them all pink noses.
Shortly after the sixth chapel has been passed the road turns a
corner, and the town on the hill (see preceding page) comes into
full view. This is a singularly beautiful spot. The chapels are
worth coming a long way to see, but this view of the town is better
still: we generally like any building that is on the top of a
hill; it is an instinct in our nature to do so; it is a remnant of
the same instinct which makes sheep like to camp at the top of a
hill; it gives a remote sense of security and vantage-ground
against an enemy. The Italians seem hardly able to look at a high
place without longing to put something on the top of it, and they
have seldom done so with better effect than in the case of the
Sacro Monte at Varese. From the moment of its bursting upon one on
turning the corner near the seventh, or Flagellation chapel, one
cannot keep one's eyes off it, and one fancies, as with S. Michele,
that it comes better and better with every step one takes; near the
top it composes, as on p. 254, but without colour nothing can give
an adequate notion of its extreme beauty.
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