Of repose, and its exalting power, I have already said enough for our present
purpose, though I have not insisted on the peculiar manifestation of it in the Christian ideal as opposed to the pagan. But this, as
well as other questions relating to the particular development of the Greek
mind, is foreign to the immediate inquiry, which therefore I shall here conclude
in the hope of resuming it in detail after examining the laws of beauty in the
inanimate creation; always, however,
painting for sale, holding this for certain, that of whatever
kind or degree the short coming may be, it is not possible but that short coming
should be visible in every pagan conception, when set beside Christian; and
believing, for my own part, that there is not only deficiency, but such
difference in kind as must make all Greek conception full of danger to the student in proportion to his
admiration of it; as I think has been fatally seen in its effect on the Italian
schools, when its pernicious element first mingled with their solemn purity, and
recently in its influence on the French historical painters: neither can I from
my present knowledge fix upon an ancient statue which expresses by the
countenance any one elevated character of soul, or any single enthusiastic
self-abandoning affection, much less any such majesty of feeling as might mark the features for supernatural. The Greek could not
conceive a spirit; he could do nothing without limbs; his god is a finite god,
talking, pursuing,
art oil paintings for sale, and going journeys;if at any time he was touched with a true
feeling of the unseen powers around him, it was in the field of poised battle,
for there is something in the near coming of the shadow of death, something in
the devoted fulfilment of mortal duty, that reveals the real God, though darkly;
that pause on the field of Platæa was not one of vain superstition; the two
white figures that blazed along the Delphic plain, when the earthquake and the
fire led the charge from Olympus, were more than sunbeams on the battle dust;
the sacred cloud, with its lance light and triumph singing, that went down to
brood over the masts of Salamis, was more than morning mist among the olives;
and yet what were the Greek's thoughts of his god of battle? No spirit power was
in the vision; it was a being of clay strength and human passion, foul, fierce,
and changeful; of penetrable arms and vulnerable flesh. Gather what we may of
great,
abstract art oil paintings, from pagan chisel or pagan dream, and set it beside the orderer of
Christian warfare, Michael the Archangel: not Milton's "with hostile brow and
visage all inflamed," not even Milton's in kingly treading of the hills of
Paradise, not Raffaelle's with the expanded wings and brandished spear, but
Perugino's with his triple crest of traceless plume unshaken in heaven, his hand
fallen on his crossleted sword, the truth girdle binding his undinted armor; God
has put his power upon him, resistless radiance is on his limbs, no lines are there
of earthly strength, no trace on the divine features of earthly anger; trustful
and thoughtful, fearless, but full of love, incapable except of the repose of
eternal conquest, vessel and instrument of Omnipotence, filled like a cloud with
the victor light, the dust of principalities and powers beneath his feet, the
murmur of hell against him heard by his spiritual ear like the winding of a
shell on the far-off sea-shore.
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