. Art and criticism : monographs and studies. such as those of Amiens, or of thePantheon, where the episodes of the life of St. Genevieve aredepicted with a candor of conception and a quiet charm of presentation that win the sympathies of simple and of learnedalike. As for the frescos of Amiens, they resume in the Ludus pro Patria the entire poem of ancient Picardy, withits woods, its peat-bogs, its groups of superb throwers of pikes,as elegant in their noble attitudes as Greek athletes, its wild-looking hunters of swans and herons, its groups of girls andboys playing near the huts at the entr
. Art and criticism : monographs and studies. such as those of Amiens, or of thePantheon, where the episodes of the life of St. Genevieve aredepicted with a candor of conception and a quiet charm of presentation that win the sympathies of simple and of learnedalike. As for the frescos of Amiens, they resume in the Ludus pro Patria the entire poem of ancient Picardy, withits woods, its peat-bogs, its groups of superb throwers of pikes,as elegant in their noble attitudes as Greek athletes, its wild-looking hunters of swans and herons, its groups of girls andboys playing near the huts at the entrance of the village, andsymbolizing domestic life; while in Picardia Nutrix, La-bor, and Rest, we find that impression of intense pantheismwhich has inspired the artist in so much of his work, the glori-fication of Nature, of the Earth, the immortal nurse, the motherof races, the Alma Mater. And herein lies the great sourceof M. Puvis de Chavannes originality and power; disdainingtraditions, he has returned to the majestic simplicity of his. ALLEGORY OF THE SORBONNE.—IV. EXTREME RIGHT: SCIENCE. 38 ART AND CRITICISM. own impressions; and instead of recurring to the treasure-houseof Renaissance or Venetian art, he has borrowed from eternalhumanity and from natural landscape those resources of inter-pretation which had hitherto been provided by superannuatedallegory and rhetorical convention. From the old mythologyhe has taken the worship of plastic beauty as manifested inbeautiful and harmonious types of human form, but he hasabandoned the old names and the ancient fables, and symbol-ized in his figures those abstractions and ideals of immortal pa-ganism which belong to no age and no country, but are imma-nent in man and in nature in the nineteenth century just asmuch as in the days when men worshipped Jupiter and Apollo,Venus and Minerva. It is as an architectural decorator that we have a right toconsider M. Puvis de Chavannes, and as such it is his gloryto have comprehended t
Size: 2013px × 1242px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookpublisherharper, booksubjectartcriticism
