s unnatural effect, nor any black and white.
"This picture," he says, "so full of merit in other respects, presents
a striking example of the factitious and unnatural effect produced by
the extraordinary opposition of black and white. I am well aware that
gay and brilliant colouring would not be appropriate to a cruel
action; but a measure is to be observed in every thing, and I cannot
be convinced that there could occur, in broad day, and in the open
air, a scene in which all was obscure and black except the figures."
Obscurity and blackness in Titian's _Peter Martyr_! Our author has
attached the school of Bologne to that of Lombardy, as others have
done, in consideration that the Caracci in forming their school
greatly studied Correggio. Yet undoubtedly Correggio stands quite
apart from the Caracci. The Bologna was in fact a "Composite" school.
If the Venetian school was indicative of business, of the activities
of society as a mass, the Lombard school, as first distinguished by
Correggio, assumed more homely grace, it was domestic, of the
hearth--the cherished love, the sweet familiar grace. This was its
characteristic; it bore a kind of garden luxuriance and richer
embellishment of colour, not the embellishment of civic pomp as seen
in the Venetian, but a coloured richness as of the fruit and flower of
a new Eden. The _Holy Families_ of Correggio are in fragrant repose.
The earth pays the homage of her profusion, and, as conscious of the
presence of him that shall remove her curse, puts on her gorgeous
apparel. The next descent from this grade of art would be to the
pastoral. M. de Burtin objects to the airs of the heads, "graceful and
smiling felt not to be altogether appropriate when the action is sad
or violent." We can imagine that he alludes to the picture of the
_Martyrdom of St Placidus and Flavia_ at Parma. The smiling saint
receiving the sword in her bosom, as a boon in thankfulness or that
coming bliss which is already hers in vision, is perhaps as touching
as any expression ever painted by Correggio. Did our author miss the
meaning of that devotional and more than hopeful smile? This picture,
like some others of Correggio, is very grey, and has probably had much
of its glazing removed. In M. de Burtin's notice of the Flemish
school, we entirely pass over the discussion respecting Van Eyck and
his discovery; enough has been said upon that subject. The partiality
of our author for Rubens is very perceptible.