Music-Study in Germany, from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay. Fay Amy
and spanned with beautiful bridges, the thousands of lamps reflected in it and trembling across the water and under the arches, the infinity of little steamers and wherries sailing to and fro and brilliantly lighted up, the music, and the throngs of people passing slowly by, put one into a delicious and bewildered sort of state, and one feels as if this world were heaven!
The day after we arrived we went, of course, to the picture gallery, and here I was entirely taken by surprise. Nothing one reads or hears gives one the least idea of the magnificence of the pictures there. I never knew what a picture was before. The softness and richness of the colouring, and their exquisite beauty, must be seen to be understood. The Sistine Madonna fills one with rapture. It is perfectly glorious, and one can't imagine how the mind of man could have conceived it. One sees what a flight it was after looking at all the other Madonnas in the Gallery, many of which are wonderful. But this one soars above them all. Most of the Madonnas look so stiff, or so old, or so matronly, or so expressionless, or, at best, as in Corregio's Adoration of the Shepherds (a magnificent picture), the rapture of the mother only is expressed in the face. In the Sistine Madonna the virgin looks so young and innocent – so virgin-like – not like a middle-aged married woman. The large, wide-open blue eyes have a dewy look in them, as if they had wept many tears, and yet such an innocence that it makes you think of a baby whom you have comforted after a violent fit of crying. The majesty of the attitude, and the perfect repose of the face, upon which is a look of waiting, of ineffable expectancy, are very striking. Mr. T. B. says it looked to him as though she had been overwhelmed at the tremendous dignity that had been put upon her, and was yet lost in the awe of it – which I think an exquisite idea. St. Sixtus, who is kneeling on the right of the virgin, has an expression of anxious solicitude on his features. He is evidently interceding with her for the congregation toward whom his right hand is outstretched, for this picture was intended to be placed over an altar. The only fault to be found with the picture, I think, is in the face of Santa Barbara, who kneels on the left. She looks sweetly down upon the sinners below, but with a slight self-consciousness. The two cherubs underneath are exquisite. Their little round faces wear an exalted look, as if their eyes fully took in the august pair to whom they are upturned. The background of the picture – all of the faces of angels cloudily painted – gives the finishing touch to this astounding creation. But you must see it to realize it.
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