_Coroll._--In the Salutation of Michael Angelo,[35] the angelic
messenger emerges from solitary twilight, his countenance seems to
labour with the awful message, and his knees to bend as he approaches
the mysterious personage: with virgin majesty and humble grace Mary bows
to the extended arm of the lucid herald, as if waked from sacred
meditation, and appears entranced by celestial sounds.
The Madonnas of Raffaelle, whether hailed parents of a God, or pressing
the divine offspring to their breast, whether receiving him from his
slumbers, or contemplating his infant motions, are uniformly transcripts
from the daily domestic images of common life and of some favourite face
matronized: the eyes of his Fornarina beamed with other fires than those
of sanctity; the sense and native dignity of her lover could veil their
fierceness, but not change their language.
The Madonna of Titiano receives her celestial visitant under an open
portico of Palladian structure, and skirted by gay gardens; the usual
ray precedes the floating angel; gold-ringleted and in festive attire,
he waves a lily wand: in sable weeds the Virgin receives the gorgeous
homage, proudly devout, like a young abbess amidst her cloistered lambs.
Tintoretto has turned salutation into irruption. The angel bursts
through the shattered casement and terrifies a vulgar female; but his
wings are tipped in heaven.[36]
168. Dignity gives probability to the impossible: we listen to the
monstrous tale of Ulysses with all the devotion due to a creed. By
dignity, even deformity becomes an instrument of art: Vulcan limps like
a god at the hand of Homer: the hump and withered arm of Richard are
engines of terror or persuasion in Shakspeare; the crook-back of Michael
Angelo strikes with awe.
169. Luxuriance of ornament destroys simplicity and repose, the
attendants of dignity.
_Coroll._--"Simon Mosca, one of the most distinguished sculptors of
ornament and foliage in the sixteenth century, when proposed by Vasari
to embellish by his designs the monument of the Cardinal di Monte, was
discountenanced by Michael Angelo on this principle." Vasari, vita de
Simone Mosca.
170. Judge not an artist from the exertions of accidental vigour or some
unpremeditated flights of fancy, but from the uniform tenor, the
never-varying principle of his works: the line and style of Titian
sometimes expand themselves like those of Michael Angelo; the heads and
groups of Raphael sometimes glow and palpitate with Titiano's tints; and
there are masses of both united in Correggio: but if you aim at
character, let Raphael be your guide; if at colour, Tiziano; if harmony
allure, Correggio: they indulged in alternate excursions, but never lost
sight of their own domain.
_Coroll._--No one, of whatever period of art, of whatever eminence or
school, out-told Rembrandt in telling the story of a subject, in the
choice of its real crisis, in simplicity, in perspicuity: still, as the
vile crust that involves his ore, his local vulgarity of style, the
ludicrous barbarity of his costume, prepossess eyes less penetrating
than squeamish against him, it requires some confidence to place him
with the classics of invention. Yet with all these defects, with every
prejudice or superiority of taste and style against him, what school has
produced a work (M. Angelo's Creation of Adam, and the Death of Ananias
by Raffaelle excepted,) which looks not pale in the superhuman splendour
that irradiates his conception of Christ before Pilate, unless it be the
raising of Lazarus by Lievens, a name comparatively obscure, whose awful
sublimity reduces the same subject as treated by Rembrandt and
Sebastian of Venice, to artificial parade or common-place?