design in architectural
harmony supreme above the melodies of gracefulness in detail. He was
essentially a lyrical as distinguished from an epical or dramatic poet.
The unity of his work is derived from the effect of light and atmosphere,
the inbreathed soul of tremulous and throbbing life, which bathes and
liquefies the whole. It was enough for him to produce a gleeful symphony
by the play of light and colour, by the animation of his figures, and by
the intoxicating beauty of his forms. His angels are genii disimprisoned
from the chalices of flowers, houris of an erotic Paradise, elemental
sprites of nature wantoning in Eden in her prime. They belong to the
generation of the fauns. Like fauns, they combine a certain wildness, a
dithyrambic ecstasy, a delight in rapid motion as they revel amid clouds
and flowers, with the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the
painter's style. Correggio's sensibility to light and colour--that quality
which makes him unique among painters--was on a par with his feeling for
form. Brightness and darkness are woven together on his figures like an
impalpable veil, aerial and transparent, enhancing the palpitations of
voluptuous movement which he loved. His colouring does not glow or burn;
blithesome and delicate, it seems exactly such a beauty-bloom as sense
requires for its satiety. That cord of jocund colour which may fitly be
combined with the smiles of daylight, the clear blues found in laughing
eyes, the pinks that tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet
silvery tones of healthy flesh, mingle, as in a pearl-shell, on his
pictures. Within his own magic circle Correggio reigns supreme; no other
artist having blent the witcheries of colouring, _chiaroscuro_, and wanton
loveliness of form, into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. To
feel his influence, and at the same moment to be the subject of strong
passion, or intense desire, or heroic resolve, or profound contemplation,
or pensive melancholy, is impossible. The Northern traveller, standing
beneath his master-works in Parma, may hear from each of those radiant and
laughing faces what the young Italian said to Goethe: _Perche pensa?
pensando s' invecchia_.

Michael Angelo is the prophet or seer of the Renaissance. It would be
impossible to imagine a stronger contrast than that which distinguishes
his art from Correggio's, or lives more different in all their details,
than those which he and Raphael or Lionardo live