The Same Rich Hues I Behold Every
Evening In The Quarter Where They Were Seen By The Artist When He Made
Them Permanent On His Canvas.
There is a great deal of prattle about Italian skies:
The skies and clouds
of Italy, so far as I have had an opportunity of judging, do not present
so great a variety of beautiful appearances as our own; but the Italian
atmosphere is far more uniformly fine than ours. Not to speak of its
astonishing clearness, it is pervaded by a certain warmth of color which
enriches every object. This is more remarkable about the time of sunset,
when the mountains put on an aerial aspect, as if they belonged to another
and fairer world; and a little after the sun has gone down, the air is
flushed with a glory which seems to transfigure all that it incloses. Many
of the fine old palaces of Florence, you know, are built in a gloomy
though grand style of architecture, of a dark-colored stone, massive and
lofty, and overlooking narrow streets that lie in almost perpetual shade.
But at the hour of which I am speaking, the bright warm radiance reflected
from the sky to the earth, fills the darkest lanes, streams into the most
shadowy nooks, and makes the prison-like structures glitter as with a
brightness of their own.
It is now nearly the middle of October, and we have had no frost. The
strong summer heats which prevailed when I came hither, have by the
slowest gradations subsided into an agreeable autumnal temperature.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 20 of 396
Words from 5180 to 5442
of 107287
