Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1858-08-27

LETTERS FROM EUROPE.
No. XLIX.
continued
Ttmce.-Lieense ofAncient artists.
A.INIIr.

In one of my letters from Rome spoke Of
the singular wickedness of artists in making
their best works the vehicle Of private malice,
us an evidence, not only Of their evil and
malignant disposition, but also of their great
estimation, inasmuch as they were permitted
to do 50 with IMMUNITY. 1t is no less strange
that such men should not only choose the
Last Judgment as subject for their powers,
but use that very subject for purposes of
malice. as did Michael Angelo in the Sistine
Chapel. So here, in an immense picture,
eco feet by 800 of the same subject, Tintor-
etto introduces his own wife three times,
il is said, in three stages OF her progress,
commencing with the happiness of their first
love, and ending with pitching her headlong
into hell, So the Judgment, by Giotto, at
Padua, is made the vehicle of the bitterest
satire upon the Roman Catholic clergy, he
himself being, of course, a Catholic. And
Andrew Orcagna, in an altar piece, in Santa
Maria Ncvella at Florence, has INDUCED in
the same satire, and has mingled with demons
on the left hand, bishops, abbots, monks and
nuns, and also grotesque tiends, one of whom
is dragging from his grave a corpse that seems
determined to make the grave his final rest
ing place, notwithstanding the judgment
trumpet is breaking up old marble-the re-
pose of princes. The same artist, in his
" Judgment at Pisa, allows Franciscan
monk to rise among the blessed on the right,
but he is politely walked over to the other side
by the archangel. In another place, an angel
and Il demon have a fat friar by the legs and
arms, each Juggling with might and main to
secure him. In this respect, there was,
doubtless, more freedom in those days than
in these, for now no artist would be allow
ed thus to deal with the religious orders, and
the fool-hardy artist that should attempt it,
would be likely to be handed over to the ten
der mercies Of the Inquisition. 1t is indeed
possible that, in this particular, some of them
only designed to teach the great solemn, reli
gious truth, that not the outer garb of priest
or monk, but the inner sanctitcation-not
the religious order, but the truly religious life
and heart were necessary to secure an en-
trance into the New Jerusalem, as the pure
minded and deeply religious Fra Angelica ia
Fiesole, in his treatment Of the Last Great
Day, taught, with beautiful and striking
emphasis, the equally solemn truth, that the
sinner, even il he should steal into heaven,
would, in its holy light, find his character SO
transparent and devilsh, that no conceal
mcnt could save him from being thrust out.
That artist has placed among the blessed
group Of an angel dragging out sinner who
has apparently hoped to pass in the crowd,
group powerful in truth and feeling and strik
ing in conception As there was not in the
mind OF the artist, SO there can not be in
that of the spectator any feeling of the
ridiculous OF the prolane or the frivolous.
All these attempts however show how much
that scene is above all human art,
Speaking of Fra Angelica, an aneodote or
two will exhibit his character in some ct
its most interesting aspects Pope Nicholas
v called him from Florence u Rome To
paint the finer miniature paintings for the
churches, and he offered at the same tins az