第 27 节
作者:乐乐陶陶      更新:2021-02-24 23:07      字数:9322
  scribbling。〃  No perception of a new power; no sympathy with the
  abandonment to a specialty not indorsed by fashions and traditions;
  but without which abandonment genius cannot easily be developed。
  At last the father yielded; and the son was apprenticed to a
  paintera degradation in the eyes of Mediaeval aristocracy。
  The celebrated Lorenzo de' Medici was then in the height of power
  and fame in Florence; adored by Roscoe as the patron of artists and
  poets; although he subverted the liberties of his country。  This
  over…lauded prince; heir of the fortunes of a great family of
  merchants; wishing to establish a school for sculpture; filled a
  garden with statues; and freely admitted to it young scholars in
  art。  Michael Angelo was one of the most frequent and enthusiastic
  visitors to this garden; where in due time he attracted the
  attention of the magnificent Lord of Florence by a head chiselled
  so remarkably that he became an inmate of the palace; sat at the
  table of Lorenzo; and at last was regularly adopted as one of the
  Prince's family; with every facility for prosecuting his studies。
  Before he was eighteen the youth had sculptured the battle of
  Hercules with the Centaurs; which he would never part with; and
  which still remains in his family; so well done that he himself; at
  the age of eighty; regretted that he had not given up his whole
  life to sculpture。
  It was then as a sculptor that Michael Angelo first appears to the
  historical student;about the year 1492; when Columbus was
  crossing the great unknown ocean to realize his belief in a western
  passage to India。  Thus commercial enterprise began with the
  revival of art; and was destined never to be separated in its
  alliance with it; since commerce brings wealth; and wealth seeks to
  ornament the palaces and gardens which it has created or purchased。
  The sculptor's art was not born until piety had already edifices in
  which to worship God; or pride the monuments in which it sought the
  glories of a name; but it made rapid progress as wealth increased
  and taste became refined; as the need was felt for ornaments and
  symbols to adorn naked walls and empty spaces; especially statuary;
  grouped or single; of men or animals;a marble history to
  interpret or reproduce consecrated associations。  Churches might do
  without them; the glass stained in every color of the rainbow; the
  altar shining with gold and silver and precious stones; the pillars
  multiplied and diversified; and rich in foliated circles; mullions;
  mouldings; groins; and bosses; and bearing aloft the arched and
  ponderous roof;one scene of dazzling magnificence;these could
  do without them; but the palaces and halls and houses of the rich
  required the image of man;and of man not emaciated and worn and
  monstrous; but of man as he appeared to the classical Greeks; in
  the perfection of form and physical beauty。  So the artists who
  arose with the revival of commerce; with the multiplication of
  human wants and the study of antiquity; sought to restore the
  buried statues with the long…neglected literature and laws。  It was
  in sculptured marbles that enthusiasm was most marked。  These were
  found in abundance in various parts of Italy whenever the vast
  debris of the ancient magnificence was removed; and were
  universally admired and prized by popes; cardinals; and princes;
  and formed the nucleus of great museums。
  The works of Michael Angelo as a sculptor were not numerous; but in
  sublimity they have never been surpassed;non multa; sed multum。
  His unfinished monument of Julius II。; begun at that pontiff's
  request as a mausoleum; is perhaps his greatest work; and the
  statue of Moses; which formed a part of it; has been admired for
  three hundred years。  In this; as in his other masterpieces;
  grandeur and majesty are his characteristics。  It may have been a
  reproduction; and yet it is not a copy。  He made character and
  moral force the first consideration; and form subservient to
  expression。  And here he differed; it is said by great critics;
  from the ancients; who thought more of form than of moral
  expression;as may be seen in the faces of the Venus de Medici and
  the Apollo Belvedere; matchless and inimitable as these statues are
  in grace and beauty。  The Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator are
  indeed exceptions; for it is character which constitutes their
  chief merit;the expression of pain; despair; and agony。  But
  there is almost no intellectual or moral expression in the faces of
  other famous and remarkable antique statues; only beauty and
  variety of form; such as Powers exhibited in his Greek Slave;an
  inferior excellence; since it is much easier to copy the beautiful
  in the nude statues which people Italy; than to express such
  intellectual majesty as Michael Angelo conceivedthat intellectual
  expression which Story has succeeded in giving to his African
  Sibyl。  Thus while the great artist retained the antique; he
  superadded a loftiness such as the ancients rarely produced; and
  sculpture became in his hands; not demoralizing and Pagan;
  resplendent in sensual charms; but instructive and exalting;
  instructive for the marvellous display of anatomical knowledge; and
  exalting from grand conceptions of dignity and power。  His
  knowledge of anatomy was so remarkable that he could work without
  models。  Our artists; in these days; must always have before their
  eyes some nude figure to copy。
  The same peculiarities which have given him fame as a sculptor he
  carried out into painting; in which he is even more remarkable; for
  the artists of Italy at this period often combined a skill for all
  the fine arts。  In sculpture they were much indebted to the
  ancients; but painting seems to have been purely a development。  In
  the Middle Ages it was comparatively rude。  No noted painter arose
  until Cimabue in the middle of the thirteenth century。  Before him;
  painting was a lifeless imitation of models afforded by Greek
  workers in mosaics; but Cimabue abandoned this servile copying; and
  gave a new expression to heads; and grouped his figures。  Under
  Giotto; who was contemporary with Dante; drawing became still more
  correct; and coloring softer。  After him; painting was rapidly
  advanced。  Pietro della Francesca was the father of perspective;
  Domenico painted in oil; discovered by Van Eyck in Flanders; in
  1410; Masaccio studied anatomy; gilding disappeared as a background
  around pictures。  In the fifteenth century the enthusiasm for
  painting became intense; even monks became painters; and every
  convent and church and palace was deemed incomplete without
  pictures。  But ideal beauty and harmony in coloring were still
  wanting; as well as freedom of the pencil。  Then arose Da Vinci and
  Michael Angelo; who practised the immutable principles by which art
  could be advanced; and rapidly following in their steps; Fra
  Bartolommeo; Fra Angelico; Rossi; and Andrea del Sarto made the age
  an era in painting; until the art culminated in Raphael and
  Corregio and Titian。  And divers cities of ItalyBologna; Milan;
  Parma; and Venicedisputed with Rome and Florence for the empire
  of art; as also did many other cities which might be mentioned;
  each of which has a history; each of which is hallowed by poetic
  associations; so that all men who have lived in Italy; or even
  visited it; feel a peculiar interest in these cities;an interest
  which they can feel in no others; even if they be such capitals as
  London and Paris。  I excuse this extravagant admiration for the
  wonderful masterpieces produced in that age; making marble and
  canvas eloquent with the most inspiring sentiments; because; wrapt
  in the joys which they excite; the cultivated and imaginative man
  forgetsand rejoices that he can forgetthe untidiness of that
  World Capital; the many reminders of ages of unthrift; which stare
  ordinary tourists in the face; and all the other disgusting
  realities which philanthropists deplore so loudly in that
  degenerate but classical and ever…to…be…hallowed land。  For; come
  what will; in spite of past turmoils it has been the scene of the
  highest glories of antiquity; calling to our minds saints and
  martyrs; as well as conquerors and emperors; and revealing at every
  turn their tombs and broken monuments; and all the hoary remnants
  of unsurpassed magnificence; as well as preserving in churches and
  palaces those wonders which were created when Italy once again
  lived in the noble aspiration of making herself the centre and the
  pride of the new civilization。
  Da Vinci; the oldest of the great masters who immortalized that
  era; died in 1519; in the arms of Francis I。 of France; and Michael
  Angelo received his mantle。  The young sculptor was taken away from
  his chisel to paint; for Pope Julius II。; the ceiling of the
  Sistine Chapel。  After the death of his patron Lorenzo; he had
  studied and done famous work in marble at Bologna; at Rome; and
  again at Florence。  He had also painted some; and with