Many Critics Consider
This Leather Too Cold In Tone; But I Consider This
Its Highest Merit, Since It Was Evidently
Made so to
emphasize by contrast the impassioned fervor of the hasp.
The highlights in this part of the work
Are cleverly managed,
the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to the ground tints,
and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads
are in the purest style of the early Renaissance.
The strokes, here, are very firm and bold - every nail-head
is a portrait. The handle on the end of the Trunk has
evidently been retouched - I think, with a piece of chalk
- but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master
in the tranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair
of this Trunk is REAL hair - so to speak - white in patched,
brown in patches. The details are finely worked out;
the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and inactive
attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling
about this part of the work which lifts it to the highest
altitudes of art; the sense of sordid realism vanishes
away - one recognizes that there is SOUL here.
View this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel,
it is a miracle. Some of the effects are very daring,
approaching even to the boldest flights of the rococo,
the sirocco, and the Byzantine schools - yet the master's hand
never falters - it moves on, calm, majestic, confident - and,
with that art which conceals art, it finally casts over
the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own,
a subtle something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the
arid components and endures them with the deep charm
and gracious witchery of poesy.
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