It Had Evidently
Suffered Barbarously In The Process Of Cleaning, A Fact Of Which I Had
Been Forewarned.
This circumstance has a particularly unfavorable
effect on a picture of Raphael's, because his coloring, at best, is
delicate and reserved, and, as compared with, that of Rubens,
approaches to poverty; so that he can ill afford to lose any thing in
this way.
Then as to conception and arrangement, there was much which annoyed
me. The Virgin and Child in the centre are represented as rising in
the air; on one side below them is the kneeling figure of Pope Sixtus;
and on the other, that of St. Barbara. Now this Pope Sixtus is, in my
eyes, a very homely old man, and as I think no better of homely old
men for being popes, his presence in the picture is an annoyance. St.
Barbara, on the other side, has the most beautiful head and face that
could be represented; but then she is kneeling on a cloud with such a
judicious and coquettish arrangement of her neck, shoulders, and face,
to show every fine point in them, as makes one feel that no saint
(unless with a Parisian education) could ever have dropped into such a
position in the _abandon_ of holy rapture. In short, she looks
like a theatrical actress; without any sympathy with the solemnity of
the religious conception, who is there merely because a beautiful
woman was wanted to fill up the picture.
Then that old, faded green curtain, which is painted as hanging down
on either side of the picture, is, to my eye, a nuisance.
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