Criticisms on Art, and Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England: With Catalogues of the Principal Galleries, Now First Collected |
Common terms and phrases
abstract admirable Angels Anonymous antique Apollo appearance artist Bassano beauty Carlo Cattle character Charles Christ Claude colour composition copy Correggio Countess Cupid Cuyp Domenichino Duke Dutch Earl effect elegant Elgin Marbles excellence expression face feeling figure finest Flaxman Fonthill Gainsborough Gallery genius Giorgione Giulio Romano give grace grandeur Guercino Guido Guido Reni head Hogarth Holbein Holy Family human idea ideal imagination imitation Jacob Ruysdael John Kneller Lady Landscape Lely light Lodovico Caracci look Lord Madonna Maratti Marriage à-la-Mode Michael Angelo mind Murillo muscles nature Nicholas Poussin Nymphs objects painted painter Parmegiano passion Paul Veronese pencil perfect Piece Portrait principle Queen Raphael refinement Rembrandt Rubens Salvator Rosa scene sculpture seems seen Sir Joshua Reynolds Sketch soft spirit statues style taste Teniers Theseus thing thought Tintoretto tion Titian Title of Picture truth Vandyck Venus Veronese View Virgin and Child whole
Popular passages
Page 133 - And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Page 129 - Sacred City : ' — might not our Oxford be called so too ." There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope : it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart : it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination : it stands in lowly sublimity, on the ' hill of ages ; ' and points with prophetic fingers to the sky : it greets the eager gaze from afar, ' with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned...
Page 207 - It appears to me that the highest perfection of the art depends, not on separating, but on uniting general truth and effect with individual distinctness and accuracy. First, — It is said that the great style in painting, as it relates to the immediate imitation of external nature, consists in avoiding the details of particular objects. It consists neither in giving nor avoiding them, but in something quite different from both. Any one may avoid the details. So far there is no difference between...
Page 119 - Not many ; some few, as thus : — To see the sun to bed, and to arise, Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, Bursting the la/y bands of sleep that bound him, With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Page 149 - Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play ; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvass for ever.
Page 191 - The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves; while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance^ Led on the eternal spring.
Page 79 - He falls so naturally, that it seems as if a person could fall in no other way ; and yet of all the ways in which a human figure could fall, it is probably the most expressive of a person overwhelmed by and in the grasp of Divine vengeance. This is in some measure, we apprehend, the secret of Raphael's success.
Page 51 - ... be satisfied with looking at either, so rich a scene do they unfold, so serene a harmony do they infuse into the soul) is like a divine piece of music, or rises " like an exhalation of rich distilled perfumes." In the figures, in the landscape, in the water, in the sky, there are tones, colours, scattered with a profuse and unerring hand, gorgeous, but most true, dazzling with their force, but blended, softened, woven together into a woof like that of...
Page 63 - It is an allegorical composition : but what truth, what purity, what delicacy in the execution ! You are introduced into the presence of a beautiful woman of quality of a former age, and it would be next to impossible to perform an unbecoming action with that portrait hanging in the room. It has an air of nobility about it, a spirit of humanity within it. There is a dove-like innocence and softness about the eyes ; in the clear, delicate complexion, health and sorrow contend for the mastery ; the...
Page 251 - Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind. So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More airy, last the bright consummate flower Spirits odorous breathes...