tellectual region; and though
Lionardo discrowned the Apostles of their aureoles, he for the first time
in the history of painting created a Christ not unworthy to be worshipped
as the _praesens Deus_. We know not whether to admire most the perfection
of the painter's art or his insight into spiritual things.[254]

If we are forced to feel that, with Da Vinci, accomplishment fell short of
power and promise, the case is very different with Raphael. In him there
was no perplexity, no division of interests. He was fascinated by no
insoluble mystery and absorbed by no seductive problems. His faculty and
his artistic purpose were exactly balanced, adequate, and mutually
supporting. He saw by intuition what to do, and he did it without let or
hindrance, exercising from his boyhood till his early death an unimpeded
energy of pure productiveness. Like Mozart, to whom he bears in many
respects a remarkable resemblance, Raphael was gifted with inexhaustible
fertility and with unwearied industry. Like Mozart, again, he had a nature
which converted everything to beauty. Thought, passion, emotion, became in
his art living melody. We almost forget his strength in admiration of his
grace; the travail of his intellect is hidden by the serenity of his
style. There is nothing over-much in any portion of his work, no sense of
effort, no straining of a situation, not even that element of terror
needful to the true sublime. It is as though the spirit of young Greece
had lived in him again, purifying his taste to perfection and restraining
him from the delineation of things stern or horrible.

Raphael found in this world nothing but its joy, and communicated to his
ideal the beauty of untouched virginity. Brescia might be sacked with
sword and flame. The Baglioni might hew themselves to pieces in Perugia.
The plains of Ravenna might flow with blood. Urbino might change masters
and obey the viperous Duke Valentino. Raphael, meanwhile, working through
his short May-life of less than twenty [Handwritten: 40] years, received
from nature and from man a message that was harmony unspoiled by one
discordant note. His very person was a symbol of his genius. Lionardo was
beautiful but stately, with firm lips and penetrating glance; he conquered
by the magnetism of an incalculable personality. The loveliness of Raphael
was fair and flexible, fascinating not by power or mystery, but by the
winning charm of open-hearted sweetness. To this physical beauty,