Do I linger in this study of simple character because
I feel myself unequal to the ecstasies which the frescos
of Raphael and his school in that pleasure dome demanded
of me? Something like that, I suppose, but I
do not pride myself on my inability. It seemed
to me that the coloring of the frescos had lost whatever
tenderness it once had; and that what was never meant
to be matter of conscious perception, but only of the
vague sense which it is the office of decoration to
impart, had grown less pleasing with the passage of
time. There in the first hall was the story of
Cupid and Psyche in the literal illustration of Apuleius,
and there in another hall was Galatea on her shell
with her Nymphs and Tritons and Amorini; and there
were Perseus and Medusa and Icarus and Phaeton and
the rest of them. But, if I gave way to all the
frankness of my nature, I should own the subjects
fallen sillv through the old age of an outworn life
and redeemed only by the wonderful skill with which
they are rendered. At the same time, I will say
in self-defence that, if I had a very long summer
in which to keep coming and dwelling long hours in
the company of these frescos, I think I might live
back into the spirit which invented the fables, and
enjoy even more the amusing taste that was never tired
of their repetition. Masterly conception and
incomparable execution are there in histories which
are the dreams of worlds almost as extinct as the
dead planets whose last rays still reach us and in
whose death-glimmer we can fancy, if we will, a unity
of life with our own not impossible nor improbable.
But more than some such appeal the Raphaels and the
Giulio Romanos of the Farnesina hardly make to the
eye untrained in the art which created them, or unversed
in the technique by which they will live till the
last line moulders and the last tint fades.
We came out and stood a long time looking up in the
pale afternoon light at the beautiful face of the
tenderly aging but not yet decrepit casino. It
was utterly charming, and it prompted many vagaries
which I might easily have mistaken for ideas.
This is perhaps the best of such experiences, and,
after you have been with famous works of art and have
got them well over and done with, it is natural and
it is not unjust that you should wish to make them
some return, if not in kind, then in quantity.
You will try to believe that you have thought about
them, and you should not too strictly inquire as to
the fact. It is some such forbearance that accounts
for a good deal of the appreciation and even the criticism
of works of art.
IX
DRAMATIC INCIDENTS
Copyrights
Roman Holidays, and Others from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
