Part 16 (1/2)

II

_On the three excellent engravers representative of the first, middle, and late schools_

[Illustration: XII

The Coronation in the Garden]

247 I have given opposite a photograph, slightly reduced from the Durer Madonna, alluded to often in the text, as an example of his best conception of womanhood It is very curious that Durer, the least able of all great artists to represent womanhood, should of late have been a very principal object of fe a wo in pictures but what they are told, (or resolve to see out of contradiction,)--or the particular things that fall in with their own feelings I saw a curious piece of enthusiastic writing by an Edinburgh lady, the other day, on the photographs I had taken from the tower of Giotto She did not care a strahat Giotto had meant by them, declared she felt it her duty only to announce what they were to _her_; and wrote two pages on the bas-relief of Heracles and Antaeus--assu it to be the death of Abel

248 It is not, however, by women only that Durer has been over-praised

He stands so alone in his own field, that the people who careelse rightly; and are continually attributing to the force of his ieneralnotes upon hiravers, ritten shortly for exteive them, with the others in this terminal article, mainly for use to estive to the reader, if he has taken up the subject seriously, and worth, therefore, a few pages of this closing sheet

249 The ood ones co shall be lovely

But Botticelli, the ancient, wants, with as little engraving, as much Sibyl as possible

Durer, the central, wants, with asof Sibyl that rand, the raving too

250 I repeat--for I want to get this clear to you--Botticelli wants, with as little engraving, as much Sibyl as possible For his head is full of Sibyls, and his heart He can't draw theracious and wonderful and good, to be engraved forever, if only he had a thousand hands and lives

He scratches down one, with no haste, with no fault, divinely careful, scrupulous, patient, but with as few lines as possible 'Another Sibyl--let me draw another, for heaven's sake, before she has burnt all her books, and vanished'

Durer is exactly Botticelli's opposite He is a worknificently 'No matter what I do it on, so thatwill do; a Sibyl, a skull, a Madonna and Christ, a hat and feather, an Ada with five legs,--anything will do foris, be rand, I said, wants asHe is essentially a copyist, and has no ideas of his own, but deep reverence and love for the work of others He will give his life to represent another ht He will do his best with every spot and line,--exhibit to you, if you will only look, the most exquisite completion of obedient skill; but will be content, if you will not look, to pass his neglected years in fruitful peace, and count every day well spent that has given softness to a shadow, or light to a smile

III

_On Durer's landscape, with reference to the sentence on p 101_: ”I hope you are pleased”

252 I spoke just now only of the ill-shaped body of this figure of Fortune, or Pleasure Beneath her feet is an elaborate landscape It is all drawn out of Durer's head;--he would look at bones or tendons carefully, or at the leaf details of foreground;--but at the breadth and loveliness of real landscape, never

He has tried to give you a bird's-eye view of Germany; rocks, and woods, and clouds, and brooks, and the pebbles in their beds, and es, and fences, and what not; but it is all a feverish dreaination

And here is a little bit of the world he would not look at--of the great river of his land, with a single cluster of its reeds, and two boats, and an island with a village, and the way for the eternal waters opened between the rounded hills[BP]

It is just what you ly artless; but the artlessness of Turner is like the face of Gainsborough's village girl, and a joy forever

IV

_On the study of anatoinner of artistic anatorandfather's trade; 'Pollajuolo,' a man of immense power, but on whoe[BQ]

was set at its deepest

Any form of passionate excess has terrific effects on body and soul, in nations as in ainst your brother, and rage accomplished in habitual deeds of blood,--do you think Nature will forget to set the seal of her indignation upon the forehead? I told you that the great division of spirit between the northern and southern races had been reconciled in the Val d'Arno The Font of Florence, and the Font of Pisa, were as the very springs of the life of the Christianity which had gone forth to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Prince of Peace Yet these two brother cities were to each other--I do not say as Abel and Cain, but as Eteocles and Polynices, and the words of aeschylus are now fulfilled in them to the uttermost The Arno baptizes their dead bodies:--their native valley between its rave;--”and so much of their land they have, as is sepulcher” Nay, not of Florence and Pisa only was this true: Venice and Genoa died in death-grapple; and eight cities of Lo Milan to her lowest stone Nay, not ainst street, and house against house, the fury of the Theban dragon flamed ceaselessly, and with the san of the shi+eld of Polynices, Justice bringing back the exile, was to them all, in turn, the portent of death: and their history, in the sum of it and substance, is as of the servants of Joab and Abner by the pool of Gibeon ”They caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side; so they fell down together: wherefore that place was called 'the field of the strong men'”