On 16 Aug, 2015 With
ELEGANT ANECDOTES about TITIAN AND PHILIP II Titian was not less esteemed by Philip II., than by his father, Charles V. When Philip married Mary, Queen of England, he presented him his famous picture of Venus and Adonis, with the following letter of congratulation, which may be found in Ticozzi’s Life of Titian: “To Philip, King of England, greeting: “Most sacred Majesty! I congratulate your Majesty on the kingdom which God has granted to you; and I accompany my congratulations with the picture of Venus and Adonis, which I hope will be looked upon by you with the favorable eye you are accustomed to cast upon the works of your servant “Titian.” According to Palomino, Philip was sitting on his…
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On 6 May, 2011 With
What they learned from the OLD MASTERS? Michelangelo
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On 12 Dec, 2010 With
Fuseli was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1788, and early in 1790 became an Academician—honors won by talent without the slightest coöperation of intrigue. His election was nevertheless unpleasant to Reynolds, who desired to introduce Bonomi the architect. Fuseli, to soothe the President, waited on him beforehand, and said, “I wish to be elected an academician. I have been disappointed hitherto by the deceit of pretended friends—shall I offend you if I offer myself next election?” “Oh, no,” said Sir Joshua with a kindly air, “no offence to me; but you cannot be elected this time—we must have an architect in.” “Well, well,” said Fuseli, who could not conceive how an architect could be a greater acquisition…
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On 5 Dec, 2010 With
This work was afterwards destroyed by fire, but the composition has been preserved by the burin of Fontana. His next performance was his celebrated picture of St. Pietro Martire, in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, at Venice, which is generally regarded as his master-piece in historical paint[Pg 3]ing. This picture was carried to Paris by the French, and subsequently restored by the Allies. Notwithstanding the importance of these and other commissions, and the great reputation he had acquired, it is said, though with little probability of truth, that he received such a small remuneration for his works, that he was in actual indigence in 1530, when the praises bestowed upon him in the writings of his friend Pietro…
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On 26 Nov, 2010 With
His Titania (also engraved in the Shakspeare Gallery), overflows with elvish fun and imaginative drollery. It professes to embody that portion of the first scene in the fourth act where the spell-blinded queen caresses Bottom the weaver, on whose shoulders Oberon’s transforming wand has placed an ass’ head. Titania, a gay and alluring being, attended by her troop of fairies, is endeavoring to seem as lovely as possible in the sight of her lover, who holds down his head and assumes the air of the most stupid of all creatures. One almost imagines that her ripe round lips are uttering the well-known words,— “Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick…
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On 23 Nov, 2010 With
The name of this illustrious painter was Tiziano Vecellio or Vecelli, and he is called by the Italians, Tiziano Vecellio da Cadore. He was descended of a noble family; born at the castle of Cadore in the Friuli in 1477, and died in 1576, according to Ridolfi; though Vasari and Sandrart place his birth in 1480. Lanzi says he died in 1576, aged 99 years. He early showed a passion for the art, which was carefully cultivated by his parents.—Lanzi says in a note, that it is pretty clearly ascertained that he received his first instruction from Antonio Rossi, a painter of Cadore; if so, it was at a[Pg 2] very tender age, for when he was ten years old…
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On 11 Nov, 2010 With
While Fuseli was laboring on his celebrated “Milton Gallery,” he was frequently embarrassed by pecuniary difficulties. From these he was relieved by a steadfast friend—Mr. Coutts—who aided him while in Rome, and forsook him not in any of his after difficulties. The grateful painter once waited on the banker, and said, “I have finished the best of all my works—the Lazar House—when shall I send it home?” “My friend,” said Mr. Coutts, “for me to take this picture would be a fraud upon you and upon the world. I have no place in which it could be fitly seen. Sell it to some one who has a gallery—your kind offer of it is sufficient for me, and makes all matters…
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On 5 Nov, 2010 With
Such was ancient Thebes—a city so populous that, according to ancient writers, in times of war 10,000 soldiers issued from each of her hundred gates, forming an army of 1,000,000 men. That these magnificent ruins are the remains of “the city of an hundred gates,”—”the earliest capital in the world,” cannot be doubted. According to the measurements made by the French, their distance from the sea on the north, is 680,000 metres (850 miles), and from Elephantine on the south, 180,000 metres (225 miles)—corresponding exactly with the 6,800 and 1,800 stadia of Herodotus. The circumference of the ruins is about 15,000 metres (17½ miles), agreeing with the 140 stadia given by Diodorus as the circumference of Thebes. The origin of…
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On 26 Oct, 2010 With
This wonderful work, engraved for Boydell’s Shakspeare Gallery, is esteemed among the best of Fuseli’s works. It is, indeed, strangely wild and superhuman—if ever a Spirit visited earth, it must have appeared to Fuseli. The “majesty of buried Denmark” is no vulgar ghost such as scares the belated rustic, but a sad and majestic shape with the port of a god; to imagine this, required poetry, and in that our artist was never deficient. He had fine taste in matters of high import; he drew the boundary line between the terrible and the horrible, and he never passed it; the former he knew was allied to grandeur, the latter to deformity and disgust. An eminent metaphysician visited the gallery before…
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On 1 Oct, 2010 With
Concerning his picture of Theodore and Honorio, Fuseli used to say, “Look at it—it is connected with the first patron I ever had.” He then proceeded to relate how Cipriani had undertaken to paint for Horace Walpole a scene from Boccaccio’s Theodore and Honorio, familiar to all in the splendid translation of Dryden, and, after several attempts, finding the subject too heavy for his handling, he said to Walpole, “I cannot please myself with a sketch from this most imaginative of Gothic fictions; but I know one who can do the story justice—a man of great powers, of the name of Fuseli.” “Let me see this painter of yours,” said the other. Fuseli was sent for, and soon satisfied Walpole…
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