sates throughout all artistic works; the ideal
repose of the former altar-pieces no longer satisfied. Longing,
devotional ardor, passionate rapture, enthusiastic ecstasy--these are
the aims of the new art. No longer the solemn dignity of the saint, but
the nervous visions of enraptured monks, are its ideal. It delights in
thrilling delineations of martyrdom, seeking to render such scenes as
effective and touching as possible. A desire for substantial power, a
political-religious tendency, had taken possession of art, and had
adapted it to its own objects. That, under such circumstances, painting
reaches a new and truly artistic importance may be traced above all to
the great masters who now cultivated the art, and still more to the tone
of the age, which promoted it in a rare measure.... The same spirit,
however, which imparted such genuine importance to painting produced the
ruin of sculpture. This epoch, more than any other, is a proof that the
greatest men of talent, appearing in a perverted age, are carried by
their very genius all the more certainly to ruin. All that, in a more
favorable period, would have raised them to be stars in the art
firmament, now made them fall like some _ignis fatuus_, the brilliant
light of which owes its illusory existence only to miasma. This striking
fact appears, at first sight, inexplicable; but it is easy to
understand, if we consider the different character of the two arts.
Plastic art had formerly emulated painting, and thus, especially in
relief, had suffered unmistakable injury to its own peculiar nature. At
that time, however, painting itself was full of architectural severity
and plastic nobleness of form. Now, when everything depended on striking
effect and speaking delineation of passionate emotions, it was compelled
to have recourse to naturalistic representation, to freer arrangements
and to more striking forms that emulated reality. If, however,
sculpture, which could not keep pace with its rival in the enamelled
coloring and mysterious charm of the _chiaro-oscuro_ which it brought
into the field, would, in anywise, do the same as painting, it was
compelled to plunge regardlessly into the same naturalism of forms and
into the same bold display of passion with which painting produced such
grand effects. And this sculpture did without the slightest scruple, and
in this lack of an artistic conscience its whole glory perished. It is
true in this passion for excited composition