n represses every emotion which does not proceed immediately from
the heart, the figures of the saints and martyrs cannot admit of much
variety. The sentiment of humility, so noble in the face of heaven,
weakens the energy of terrestrial passions and necessarily gives
monotony to most religious subjects. When Michael Angelo applied his
terrible genius to those subjects, he almost changed their essence by
giving to his prophets a formidable expression of power more becoming a
Jupiter than a Saint. He, like Dante, often avails himself of the images
of Paganism and blends the heathen mythology with the Christian
religion. One of the most admirable circumstances attending the
establishment of Christianity, is the lowly estate of the apostles who
have preached it, and the misery and debasement of the Jewish people, so
long the depositaries of the promises that announced the coming of
Christ. This contrast between the littleness of the means and the
greatness of the result, is in a moral point of view, extremely fine;
but in painting, which exhibits the means alone, Christian subjects must
be less dazzling than those taken from the heroic and fabulous ages.
Among the arts, music alone can be purely religious. Painting cannot be
confined to so abstract and vague an expression as that of sound. It is
true that the happy combination of colour, and of _chiaro-oscuro_
produces, if it may be so expressed, a musical effect in painting; but
as the latter represents life, it should express the passions in all
their energy and diversity. Undoubtedly it is necessary to choose among
historical facts, those which are sufficiently known not to require
study in order to comprehend them; for the effect produced by painting
ought to be immediate and rapid, like every other pleasure derived from
the fine arts; but when historical facts are as popular as religious
subjects, they have the advantage over them of the variety of situations
and sentiments which they recall.

Lord Nelville thought also, that scenes of tragedy and the most moving
poetical fictions, ought to claim a preference in painting, in order
that all the pleasures of the imagination and of the soul might be
united. Corinne combated this opinion, fascinating as it was. She was
convinced that the encroachment of one art upon another was mutually
injurious. Sculpture loses the advantages which are peculiar to it when
it aspires to represent a group of figures as in painting; paintin