Howells about Scott, the polemic temper,
the temper most opposed to the critical, is very generally recognized.
And in spite of their admirable accomplishment in various branches of
literature, these writers will never quite recover from the misfortune
of having preoccupied themselves as critics with the defects instead of
the qualities of what is classic. Yet the protestantism of the
successive schools of painting against the errors of their predecessors
has something even more crass about it. Contemporary painters and
critics thoroughly alive, and fully in the contemporary aesthetic
current, so far from appreciating modern classic art sympathetically,
are apt to admire the old masters themselves mainly on technical
grounds, and not at all to enter into their general aesthetic attitude.
The feeling of contemporary painters and critics (except, of course,
historical critics) for Raphael's genius is the opposite of cordial. We
are out of touch with the "Disputa," with angels and prophets seated on
clouds, with halos and wings, with such inconsistencies as the "Doge
praying" in a picture of the marriage of St.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38