. When we
come, however, to estimate painters according to their dramatic faculty,
their power of telling a story or impressing a majestic truth, their
range and strength of mind, we find the merits of Correggio very feeble
in comparison with those of the highest masters, and even of many who
without, being altogether great have excelled in these particular
qualities. Correggio never _means_ much, and often, in subjects where
fulness of significance is demanded, he means provokingly little. He
expressed his own miraculous facility by saying that he always had his
thoughts at the end of his pencil; in truth, they were often thoughts
rather of the pencil and its controlling hand than of the teeming brain.
He has the faults of his excellences--sweetness lapsing into mawkishness
and affectation, empty in elevated themes and lasciviously voluptuous in
those of a sensuous type, rapid and forceful action lapsing into
posturing and self-display, fineness and sinuosity of contour lapsing
into exaggeration and mannerism, daring design lapsing into
incorrectness. No great master is more dangerous than Correggio to his
enthusiasts; round him the misdeeds of conventionalists and the follies
of connoisseurs cluster with peculiar virulence, and almost tend to
blind to his real and astonishing excellences those practitioners or
lovers of painting who, while they can acknowledge the value of
_technique_, are still more devoted to greatness of soul, and grave or
elevated invention, as expressed in the form of art.

Correggio was the head of the school of painting of Parma, which forms
one main division of the Lombardic school. He had more imitators than
pupils. Of the latter one can name with certainty only his son Pomponio,
who was born in 1521 and died at an advanced age; Francesco Capelli;
Giovanni Giarola; Antonio Bernieri (who, being also a native of the town
of Correggio, has sometimes been confounded with Allegri); and Bernardo
Gatti, who ranks as the best of all. The Parmigiani (Mazzuoli) were his
most highly distinguished imitators.

A large number of books have been written concerning Correggio. The
principal modern authority is Conrado Ricci, _Life and Times of
Correggio_ (1896); see also Pungileoni, _Memorie storiche di Antonio
Allegri_ (1817); Julius Meyer, _Antonio Allegri_ (1870, English
translation, 1876); H. Thode, _Correggio_ (1898); Bigi, _Vita ed
opere_ (1881); Colnaghi, _Correggio Frescoes at Parma_ (184