Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


Great Pictures, As Seen and
Described by Famous Writers

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Pictures, As Seen and Described
by
Famous Writers, Edited by Esther Singleton
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers
Editor: Esther Singleton
Release Date: January 7, 2006 [eBook #17478]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT
PICTURES, AS SEEN AND DESCRIBED BY FAMOUS
WRITERS***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Leonard Johnson, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which
includes the original illustrations. See 17478-h.htm or 17478-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/7/17478/17478-h/17478-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/7/17478/17478-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Bracketted lower case letters refer to notes at the end of the text{a}
At the end of this text I have provided some links to Internet sites
which have more information about some of the artists, some of which
may have color images similar to the ones presented in this book.

GREAT PICTURES
As Seen and Described by Famous Writers
Edited and Translated by
ESTHER SINGLETON
Author of "Turrets, Towers, and Temples" and Translator of "The
Music Dramas of Richard Wagner"
With Numerous Illustrations

[Illustration: FISHERMAN PRESENTING THE RING TO THE
DOGE GRADENIGO. _Bordone._]

New York Dodd, Mead and Company Copyright, 1899 By Dodd, Mead
and Company

Preface
The cordial reception of "Turrets, Towers, and Temples" has
encouraged me to hope that a welcome may be given to a book treating
the masterpieces of painting in a similar manner.
Great writers and literary tourists have occasionally been inspired to
record the impressions of their saunterings among galleries and
museums. The most interesting of these, not necessarily professional, I
have tried to bring together in the following pages. My object has been
not to make a selection of the greatest pictures in the world, although
many that have that reputation will be found here, but rather to bring
together those that have produced a powerful impression on great
minds. Consequently, when the reader is disturbed at the omission of
some world-famous painting, I beg him to remember my plan and
blame the great writers instead of me for neglecting his favourite.
My task has not been a light one. A few words of rapturous admiration
are constantly to be met with in the pages of art-lovers, but a
sympathetic study of a single work is rarely found. General comment of
a given artist's work is also plentiful, while discriminating praise of
individual canvases is scanty. The literary selection has, therefore,
involved a great deal of research.
From time to time the relative popularity of painters shifts strangely,
but no matter what inconstant fashion may dictate, or what may be the
cult of the hour, certain paintings never lose their prestige, but annually
attract as many pilgrims as Lourdes or Fusi-San.
Of modern painters I have only included Turner and Rossetti.
It is interesting to compare the example I have chosen from Rossetti
with Leonardo's "Monna Lisa." Pater has admirably brought out,
without dwelling too much upon it, the charm that is eternal in her face

as well as the fantastic imagination of the great artist who created her
for all time. He says: "The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together
ten thousand experiences, is an old one.... Certainly Lady Lisa might
stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern
idea." In a similar sense Lilith the siren, the Lorelei, the eternal
enchantress, in her modern robe, is the embodiment of a new fancy, the
symbol of the ancient idea; and just here across four centuries the
thoughts of two great artists meet.
The types of beauty and women in this book offer no little suggestion
to the fancy. From Botticelli's "La Bella Simonetta," and Raphael's "La
Fornarina," through all the periods of painting the model has been a
great influence upon the painter's work, and upon this point nearly
every essayist and critic represented in these pages dwells. In many of
the essays, such as Pater's on Botticelli, and Swinburne's on Andrea del
Sarto, the author strays away from the painting to talk of the painter,
but in doing this he gives us so thoroughly the spirit of that painter that
a fuller light is thrown upon the picture before us.
I have included a few criticisms by modern French critics, MM.
Valabrègue, Lafond, Giron, Guiffrey, and Reymond, recognized
authorities upon the artists whose works they describe;