Here, perhaps, these yearnings for the ideal will meet
their satisfaction.
The ascent to the picture gallery tends to produce
a flutter of excitement and expectation. Magnificent staircases, dim
perspectives of frescoes and carvings, the glorious hall of Apollo,
rooms with mosaic pavements, antique vases, countless spoils of art,
dazzle the eye of the neophyte, and prepare the mind for some grand
enchantment. Then opens on one the grand hall of paintings arranged by
schools, the works of each artist by themselves, a wilderness of
gorgeous growths.
I first walked through the whole, offering my mind up aimlessly to see
if there were any picture there great and glorious enough to seize and
control my whole being, and answer, at once, the cravings of the
poetic and artistic element. For any such I looked in vain. I saw a
thousand beauties, as also a thousand enormities, but nothing of that
overwhelming, subduing nature which I had conceived. Most of the men
there had painted with dry eyes and cool hearts, thinking only of the
mixing of their colors and the jugglery of their art, thinking little
of heroism, faith, love, or immortality. Yet when I had resigned this
longing; when I was sure I should not meet there what I sought, then I
began to enjoy very heartily what there was.
In the first place, I now saw Claudes worthy of the reputation he
bore. Three or four of these were studied with great delight; the
delight one feels, who, conscientiously bound to be delighted,
suddenly comes into a situation to be so.
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