There Were No Pictures In The Gallery Which I
Looked Upon So Long, And To Which I Returned So Often And With Such
Growing Pleasure, As These.
I found in them, if not a commanding, a
drawing influence, a full satisfaction for one part of my nature.
There were Raphaels there, which still disappointed me, because from
Raphael I asked and expected more. I wished to feel his hand on my
soul with a stronger grasp; these were too passionless in their
serenity, and almost effeminate in their tenderness.
But Rubens, the great, joyous, full-souled, all-powerful
Rubens! - there he was, full as ever of triumphant, abounding life;
disgusting and pleasing; making me laugh and making me angry; defying
me to dislike him; dragging me at his chariot wheels; in despite of my
protests forcing me to confess that there was no other but he.
This Medici gallery is a succession of gorgeous allegoric paintings,
done at the instance of Mary of Medici, to celebrate the praise and
glory of that family. I was predetermined not to like them for two
reasons: first, that I dislike allegorical subjects; and second, that
I hate and despise that Medici family and all that belongs to them. So
no sympathy with the subjects blinded my eyes, and drew me gradually
from all else in the hall to contemplate these. It was simply the love
of power and of fertility that held me astonished, which seemed to
express with nonchalant ease what other painters attain by laborious
efforts. It occurred to me that other painters are famous for single
heads, or figures, and that were the striking heads and figures with
which these pictures abound to be parcelled out singly, any one of
them would make a man's reputation. Any animal of Rubens, alone, would
make a man's fortune in that department. His fruits and flowers are
unrivalled for richness and abundance; his old men's Leads are
wonderful; and when he chooses, which he does not often, he can even
create a pretty woman. Generally speaking his women are his worst
productions. It would seem that he had revolted with such fury from
the meagre, pale, cadaverous outlines of womankind painted by his
predecessors, the Van Eyks, whose women resembled potato sprouts grown
in a cellar, that he altogether overdid the matter in the opposite
direction. His exuberant soul abhors leanness as Nature abhors a
vacuum; and hence all his women seem bursting their bodices with
fulness, like overgrown carnations breaking out of their green
calyxes. He gives you Venuses with arms fit to wield the hammer of
Vulcan; vigorous Graces whose dominion would be alarming were they
indisposed to clemency. His weakness, in fact, his besetting sin, is
too truly described by Moses: -
"But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked;
Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick,
Thou art covered with fatness."
Scornfully he is determined upon it; he will none of your scruples;
his women shall be fat as he pleases, and you shall like him
nevertheless.
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