By A Strange Perversity, People Seem To Think That The Author Of
Nature Cannot Or Will Not Inspire Art; But "He That Formed The Eye,
Shall He Not See?
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" Are not
God's works the great models, and is not sympathy of spirit with the
Master necessary to the understanding of the models?
But to continue our walk. We entered another Dutch apartment,
embellished with works by Dietrich, prettily colored, and laboriously
minute; then into a corridor devoted chiefly to the works of Rembrandt
and scholars. In this also were a number of those minute culinary
paintings, in which cabbages, brass kettles, onions, potatoes, &c.,
are reproduced with praiseworthy industry. Many people are enraptured
with these; but for my part I have but a very little more pleasure in
a turnip, onion, or potato in a picture than out, and always wish that
the industry and richness of color had been bestowed upon things in
themselves beautiful. The great Master, it is true, gives these
models, but he gives them not to be looked at, but eaten. If painters
could only contrive to paint vegetables (cheaply) so that they could
be eaten, I would be willing.
Two small saloons are next devoted to the modern Dutch and German
school. In these is Denner's head of an old woman, which Cowper
celebrates in a pretty poem - a marvel of faithful reproduction. One
would think the old lady must have sat at least a year, till he had
daguerreotyped every wrinkle and twinkle. How much better all this
labor spent on the head of a good old woman than on the head of a
cabbage!
And now come a set of Italian rooms, in which we have some curious
specimens of the Romish development in religion; as, for instance, the
fathers Gregory, Augustine, and Jerome, meditating on the immaculate
conception of the Virgin. Think of a painter employing all his powers
in representing such a fog bank!
Next comes a room dedicated to the works of Titian, in which two nude
Venuses, of a very different character from the de Milon, are too
conspicuous. Titian is sensuous; a Greek, but not of the highest
class.
The next room is devoted to Paul Veronese. This Paul has quite a
character of his own - a grand old Venetian, with his head full of
stateliness, and court ceremony, and gorgeous conventionality, half
Oriental in his passion for gold, and gems, and incense. As a specimen
of the subjects in which his soul delights, take the following, which
he has wrought up into a mammoth picture: Faith, Love, and Hope,
presenting to the Virgin Mary a member of the old Venetian family of
Concina, who, after having listened to the doctrines of the
reformation, had become reconciled to the church. Here is Paul's
piety, naively displayed by giving to the Virgin all the courtly
graces of a high-born signorina. He paints, too, the Adoration of the
Magi, because it gives such a good opportunity to deal with camels,
jewels, turbans, and all the trappings of Oriental royalty.
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