Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great

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Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys To The Homes Of Eminent
Artists, by Elbert Hubbard #2 in our series by Elbert Hubbard
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Title: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists
Author: Elbert Hubbard
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6306] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 23, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF THE GREAT
VOLUME 6--LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ARTISTS
ELBERT HUBBARD
MEMORIAL EDITION

CONTENTS
RAPHAEL
LEONARDO
BOTTICELLI
THORWALDSEN
GAINSBOROUGH
VELASQUEZ
COROT
CORREGGIO
BELLINI
CELLINI
ABBEY
WHISTLER

RAPHAEL
And with all this vast creative activity, he recognized only one self-imposed limitation--beauty. Hence, though his span of life was short, his work is imperishable. He steadily progressed: but he was ever true, beautiful and pure, and freer than any other master from superficiality and mannerism. He produced a vast number of pictures, elevating to men of every race and of every age, and before whose immortal beauty artists of every school unite in common homage. --Wilhelm Lubke [Illustration: Raphael]
The term "Preraphaelite" traces a royal lineage to William Morris. Just what the word really meant, William Morris was not sure, yet he once expressed the hope that he would some day know, as a thousand industrious writers were laboring to make the matter plain.
Seven men helped William Morris to launch the phrase, by forming themselves into an organization which they were pleased to call the "Preraphaelite Brotherhood."
The word "brotherhood" has a lure and a promise for every lonely and tired son of earth. And Burne-Jones pleaded for the prefix because it was like holy writ: it gave everybody an opportunity to read anything into it that he desired.
Of this I am very sure, in the Preraphaelite Brotherhood there was no lack of appreciation for Raphael. In fact, there is proof positive that Burne-Jones and Madox Brown studied him with profit, and loved him so wisely and well that they laid impression-paper on his poses. This would have been good and sufficient reason for hating the man; and possibly this accounts for their luminous flashes of silence concerning him. The Preraphaelite Brotherhood, like all other liberal organizations, was quite inclined to be illiberal. And the prejudice of this clanship, avowedly founded without prejudice, lay in the assumption that life and art suffered a degeneration from the rise of Raphael. In art, as in literature, there is overmuch tilting with names--so the Preraphaelites enlisted under the banner of Botticelli.
Raphael marks an epoch. He did what no man before him had ever done, and by the sublimity of his genius placed the world forever under obligations to him. In fact, the art of the Preraphaelites was built on Raphael, with an attempt to revive the atmosphere and environment that belonged to another. Raphael mirrored the soul of things--he used the human form and the whole natural world as symbols of spirit. And this is exactly what Burne-Jones did, and the rest of the Brotherhood tried to do. The thought of Raphael and of Burne- Jones often seems identical; in temperament, disposition and aspiration they were one. That poetic and fervid statement of Mrs. Jameson, that Burne-Jones is the avatar of Raphael, contains the germ of truth. The dream-women of Burne-Jones have the same haunting and subtle spiritual wistfulness that is to be seen in the Madonnas of Raphael. Each of these men loved a woman--and each pictured her again and again. Whether this woman had an existence outside the figment of the brain matters not: both painted her as they saw her-- tender, gentle and trustful.
When jealous and o'erzealous competitors made the charge against Raphael that he was lax in his religious duties, Pope Leo the Tenth waived the matter by saying, "Well, well, well!--he is an artistic Christian!" As much as to say, he works his religion up into art, and therefore we grant him absolution for