Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ... (3T has been said that the delight of a connoisseur is 'a 1 dark, invisible, very fine old pictureand there can be no doubt of the existence, among admirers of the old masters, of considerable reverence for the mysterious stains and discolourations which pictures acquire by neglect, in the long lapse of years. Enthusiastic collectors will exult in the ' golden' splendour of a Claude, the ' glowing warmth' of a Cuyp, or the ' rich transparent browns' of Rembrandt, which qualities, in a large degree, are occasioned by coatings of discoloured varnishes and oils, producing upon the pictures effects similar to layers of stained glass. A celebrated critic, speaking of Sebastiano del Piombo's ' Raising of Lazarus, ' in the National Gallery, grows eloquent on the dark incrustation by which that famous composition is obscured. He says, ' the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh is well baked, dingy, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion tiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an ap The ' baked' look of the figure is an affair of time Thus it is inferred that Sebas pearance of half putrefaction B and the critic8, and not of the original painter. Did not Hazlitt overlook the too evident fact, that the noble picture referred to is embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt, and that the figure of Lazarus is only discoloured in the same degree as the other portions of the work? The same critic dwells rapturously on the decayed cartoons of Raphael at Hampton Court. After describing the spirit and beauties of those divine pictures, he proceeds to account for their transcendental qualities, which he.