The art of the Vatican; a brief history of the palace, and an account of the principal works of art within its walls . the charm, the soothing spirit, or the tendernessof woman displayed. No matter how much thoseanxious to see every perfection in the works ofMichelangelo have praised the face and figure ofEve, it is nevertheless true that at the fartheststretch of imagination she is neither beautiful, nordoes she have any of that soft feminine enchantmentthat, for instance, might answer to the ewig weib-liche, present even in the most doughty of Wagnersheroines. The sibyls are majestic, mighty
The art of the Vatican; a brief history of the palace, and an account of the principal works of art within its walls . the charm, the soothing spirit, or the tendernessof woman displayed. No matter how much thoseanxious to see every perfection in the works ofMichelangelo have praised the face and figure ofEve, it is nevertheless true that at the fartheststretch of imagination she is neither beautiful, nordoes she have any of that soft feminine enchantmentthat, for instance, might answer to the ewig weib-liche, present even in the most doughty of Wagnersheroines. The sibyls are majestic, mighty, inscrut-able, an incarnation of insight, knowledge, andpower, — woman not sublimated so much as rein-carnated in an entirely sexless, if highly vitalisedform. And in spite of their majestic calm and force-ful, puissant grandeur, one finds not hope so muchas a stern integrity, a lofty purpose far and away re-moved from joy or gladness. No — in the wholeimmense series bearing the name of the most solitarygenius that ever lived, it is only in the figures of hisyouthful men that we find any of the gladness, the. ONE OF THE YOUNG ATHLETES By Michelangelo; from Sistine Ceiling XEbe ©fstine Cbapel 7 spring, and the elixir of life. And the Sistine, inspite of its overwhelming tragic significance, has in-numerable figures of these youths. In the twentyyoung athletes, holding the ribbons of the medal-lions in the central vaulting, the twenty-four bronzefigures filling the spandrels, or the forty-eight twinned caryatids, — the youthful male is shownin every variety of movement, position, and expres-sion. Above all, they express some of the merephysical joy of living, as well as mental faces of the twenty central youths are verywonders for their sensitive, entrancing beauty, witheyes through which the soul shines seekingly. Butmost of all it is the rhythmic poetry that controlstheir limbs, the grand lines of their thorax, the veryelectricity that seems to throb thro
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectart, bookyear1903
