_Savans_ Refer The Statue To The Time Of Phidias; And As This Is A Pleasant Idea To Me, I Go A Little Further, And Ascribe Her To Phidias Himself.

The statue is much mutilated, both arms being gone, and part of the foot.

But there is a majesty and grace in the head and face, a union of loveliness with intellectual and moral strength, beyond any thing which I have ever seen. To me she might represent Milton's glorious picture of unfallen, perfect womanhood, in his Eve: -

"Yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best. All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; wisdom, in discourse with her, Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows. Authority and reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind, and nobleness, their seat Build in her, loveliest, and create an awe About her, like a guard angelic placed."

Compared with this matchless Venus, that of Medici seems as inane and trifling as mere physical beauty always must by the side of beauty baptized, and made sacramental, as the symbol of that which alone is truly fair.

With regard to the arrangements of the Louvre, they seem to me to be admirable. No nation has so perfectly the qualifications to care for, keep, and to show to best advantage a gallery of art as the French.

During the heat of the outburst that expelled Louis Philippe from the throne, the Louvre was in some danger of destruction. Destructiveness is a native element of human nature, however repressed by society; and hence every great revolutionary movement always brings to the surface some who are for indiscriminate demolition. Moreover there is a strong tendency in the popular mind, where art and beauty have for many years been monopolized as the prerogative of a haughty aristocracy, to identify art and beauty with oppression; this showed itself in England and Scotland in the general storm which wrecked the priceless beauty of the ecclesiastical buildings. It was displaying itself in the same manner in Germany during the time of the reformation, and had not Luther been gifted with a nature as strongly aesthetic as progressive, would have wrought equal ruin there. So in the first burst of popular enthusiasm that expelled the monarchy, the cry was raised by some among the people, "We shall never get rid of kings till we pull down the palaces;" just the echo of the old cry in Scotland, "Pull down the nests, and the rooks will fly away." The populace rushed in to the splendid halls and saloons of the Louvre, and a general encampment was made among the pictures. In this crisis a republican artist named Jeanron saved the Louvre; saved the people the regret that must have come over them had they perpetrated barbarisms, and Liberty the shame of having such outrages wrought in her name.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 94 of 233
Words from 48366 to 48874 of 120793