Look at the two faces side
by side, and say whether God or the king can make the better nobleman.
Among those mythological subjects in which Rubens delighted, the best
here are his Perseus and Andromeda, where the young hero comes
gloriously in a brand-new suit of Milanese armor, while the lovely
princess, in a costume that never grows old-fashioned, consisting of
sunshine and golden hair, awaits him and deliverance in beautiful
resignation; a Judgment of Paris, the Three Graces,--both prodigies of
his strawberries-and-cream color; and a curious suckling of Hercules,
which is the prototype or adumbration of the ecstatic vision of St.
Bernard. He has also a copy of Titian's Adam and Eve, in an
out-of-the-way place downstairs, which should be hung beside the
original, to show the difference of handling of the two master
colorists.
Especially happy is this Museum in its Van Dycks. Besides those
incomparable portraits of Lady Oxford, of Liberti the Organist of
Antwerp, and others better than the best of any other man, there are a
few large and elaborate compositions such as I have never seen
elsewhere. The principal one is the Capture of Christ by Night in the
Garden of Gethsemane, which has all the strength of Rubens, with a more
refined study of attitudes and a greater delicacy of tone and touch.
Another is the Crowning with Thorns,--although of less dimensions, of
profound significance in expression, and a flowing and marrowy softness
of execution.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155