voked a kind of hero-worship for this excellent artist
and true poet.
[184] A friend, writing to me from Italy, speaks thus of Botticelli, and
of the painters associated with him: "When I ask myself what it is I find
fascinating in him--for instance, which of his pictures, or what element
in them--I am forced to admit that it is the touch of paganism in him,
the fairy-story element, _the echo of a beautiful lapsed mythology which
he has found the means of transmitting._" The words I have printed in
italics seem to me very true. At the same time we must bear in mind that
the scientific investigation of nature had not in the fifteenth century
begun to stand between the sympathetic intellect and the outer world.
There was still the possibility of that "lapsed mythology," the dream of
poets and the delight of artists, seeming positively the best form of
expression for sentiments aroused by nature.
[185] _De Rerum Natura_, lib. v. 737.
[186] The rose-tree background in a Madonna belonging to Lord Elcho is a
charming instance of the value given to flowers by careful treatment.
[187] I cannot bring myself to accept Mr. Pater's reading of the
Madonna's expression. It seems to me that Botticelli meant to portray the
mingled awe and tranquillity of a mortal mother chosen for the Son of
God. He appears to have sometimes aimed at conveying more than painting
can compass; and, since he had not Lionardo's genius, he gives sadness,
mournfulness, or discontent, for some more subtle mood. Next to the
Madonna of the Uffizzi, Botticelli's loveliest religious picture to my
mind is the "Nativity" belonging to Mr. Fuller Maitland. Poetic
imagination in a painter has produced nothing more graceful and more
tender than the dance of angels in the air above, and the embracement of
the angels and the shepherds on the lawns below.
[188] In the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice. I do not mention this
picture as a complete pendant to Botticelli's famous _tondo_. The faces
of S. Catherine and Madonna, however, have something of the rarity that
is so striking in that work.
[189] I might mention stanzas 122-124 of Poliziano's _Giostra_,
describing Venus in the lap of Mars; or stanzas 99-107, describing the
birth of Venus; and from Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_, I might quote
the episode of Rinaldo's punishment by Love (lib. ii. canto xv. 43), or
the tale of Silvanella and Narcissus (lib. ii. canto xvii. 49).
[190] I hope to make use of this
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