His Master
Was Cimabue, Who Learned Painting And Architecture Of The Grecian
Artists, Who Came From Constantinople, And First Revived These
Arts In Italy.
But, to return to St. Peter's, I was not at all
pleased with the famous statue of the dead Christ in his mother's
lap, by Michael Angelo.
The figure of Christ is as much
emaciated, as if he had died of a consumption: besides, there is
something indelicate, not to say indecent, in the attitude and
design of a man's body, stark naked, lying upon the knees of a
woman. Here are some good pictures, I should rather say copies of
good pictures, done in Mosaic to great perfection; particularly a
St. Sebastian by Domenichino, and Michael the Archangel, from a,
painting of Guido Rheni. I am extremely fond of all this artist's
pieces. There is a tenderness and delicacy in his manner; and his
figures are all exquisitely beautiful, though his expression is
often erroneous, and his attitudes are always affected and
unnatural. In this very piece the archangel has all the air of a
French dancing-master; and I have seen a Madonna by the same
hand, I think it is in the Palazzo di Barberini, in which, though
the figures are enchanting, the Virgin is represented holding up
the drapery of the infant, with the ridiculous affectation of a
singer on the stage of our Italian opera. The Mosaic work, though
brought to a wonderful degree of improvement, and admirably
calculated for churches, the dampness of which is pernicious to
the colours of the pallet, I will not yet compare to the
productions of the pencil.
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