The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1839-07-20

We had frequently before seen this triumph
of Grecian art, and were fully iInbued with
admiration of its merits. We, therefore, at
this time, highly enjoyed its SURPRISING excel
lencies. The flambeaa.light, however, did
not improve il. Il gave the expression more
intensity and glow, hui this deuanted some
what from It's god.like majesty and repose'
We saw the angry PhHbus OF the first book
Of the lliad, who irod haughily along,
"gloomy night"
while the arrows ratified on his shoulder
not the lofty Dweller of the Heavens, the
God Of light and poetry, looking with mo-.
mentary scorn upon the reptile which he had
hardly paused ia his path to Stay. Il was
dark and yindictiye deity scowling Mars,
rather than the golden. haired, open-browed
Master Of the Sun. He, standing in all the
freshness Of immortal youth, with no defect
to hide from the searching daylight, needs not
the glow Of torches TO add force and signih-
cancy to his traits. The embodying OF the
noblest conceptions Of divinity, which an
cient art has given to the world, alone, nnap-
proachable, his beauty is cold and passion
less, if you will. but, therefore, The more pure
and celesiial-the more incongruous with that
potent chiaro scuro, which makes the marble
papitate like flesh. and adds new fame TO
wrath, and new torment TO physical anguish:
If these be the advantages of this kind OF
illumination, judge Of its influence the La
coon. Upon entering that gloomy chamber
wheye, shut in from all joyous images Of
Fauns and Nymphs, the priest and ms sons
are wriihing in solitary woe, we feit IKE
those about TO witness real dying agonies.
| We beheld, indeed, that wretched group IN
new aspect of horror. Starting forth IRON me
surrounding darkness, it seemed dreadful
vision conjured up by some fend from the
He'll of Dante The red light fell In broad
mass upon the upturned face Of the father
with its wrinkled brow, half closed eyes, and
lips slightly parted, expressing, not the noisy
sufferings of the priest IN the EReid, but
silent nnuiterable torture. In dlmmer light
were the imploring countenances Of the boys
looking to their father for support, which
had never before failed them in time Of need.
Below, here and there, upon the contorted
limbs and coiling reptiles, the lights and
darks fell in strongly contrasted masses;
which, moving as the unsteady hand of the
attendant, shook the fambeau, gave fright
full seinblance OF life and motion TO the marble
Ian illusion not little heightened by the
trembling Of the black shadow on the wall
behind.
The complexity of this group, lis minute
developments or muscular action, and above
all, the nature Of its subject, adapt II better
to torch-light than any other object in the
gallery. A yellow, earth-born radiance Is
less suited TO the simple and majestic repose
Of the statues Of the Gods than to an exhibit
ton Of human anguish like this. Here. in
deed, is nothing OF the soul, Of the celestial
principle. Il is all physical sufiering-a
desperate struggle Of flesh and blood with
superior corporal force-a struggle in which
every energy is exerted-eVery sinew and
muscle strained 10 their utmost tension. How
strikngly does the victim Of the serpent con-
trast with the conquerer Of the Pythos =
The one is pure and fresh as the morning,
clothed with that quiet majesty which al
tends all elfort-scorning might, irradiate in
the consciousness of an invincible and i'm
mortal nature. The other is feeble, mortal,
despairing, vainly rallying thu remnant of
his corpnreal strength in one convulsive effort
to shake off the creeping reptile; terrific
manifestation of the ihraldom of the Body to
the fear of Death, as the Apollo is symbol
of the glorious freedom of the undying spirit
Some persons have seen in the statue an
exhibition of moral grandeur They inter-
pref the rigidity of the mouth and the con-
traction of the throat, connected with the
expansion Of the chest, into evidences of an
attempt to restrain the utterance of groan,
and TO suffer in heroic silence. Mr.. Payne
Knight has set Agesander above Virgil fer
thus presenting the subject, while the LAGOON
of the poet is made to roar like brute beast:
| "Clamores stimuli horrendos ad sidera tollit
| Quales mugitus, fu il cum saucius aram
Taurus, ct Uncertain excussit cervice securim"
But Mr.. Charles Bell, almost as much dis
| tingushed as conn0isseur as an anaiomist,
observes, that at the moment of making the
tremendous exer,ions which are with such
wonderful truth to nature expressed in this
statue, it would have been physically inpos-
slble for LAGOON 10 raise an outcry. The
whole strength Of the chest was needed to
give power to the arms in untwisting the
coiling serpents Instead, therefore, Of ex-
hibiing the effort of great fortitude, it only
presents the natural condition of the corpo.
real structure in making the exertions just
mentioned. Fortified by this authority, and
the opinions of Fusei, expressed with much
| vigor of language in one of his lectures, it is
perhaps no, presump,uous to maintain, that
the object OF the sculptor was simply to re-
present mature struggling within the jaws
of death J" and not all this, together with the
paternal pity, the indignation at undeserved
suferngs. and the heroic sef-command which
the ingenious fancy of Winckelmann has
discovered. An allusion may be pardoned
here to another criticism upon the group,
which is very current. The sons are called
dimlnutive men. Those who say SO, seem to
forget that these boys are not represented as
having been chubby infants, but youths of
sixteen or eventeen-attendants at the altar,