Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-05-27
OLD PORTRAITS.
A Waking Vision of Dead Bodies-Fameus
Beauties

| dreams of fair women have smiled on us ?
/ From the walls of galleries, from the sides
Of rooms where once in life they ruled as
mistresses, from dealers dusty stores IN
worthy to harbor such sweetness, from
thousand other fitting or uniting
| shrines, the sweet faces of dear, dead
women strike US hike CLEANS of sunshine
that are yet sad. 1s this the end of beauty
which SO conquered all hearts that even
these memories of il make our pulses beat
faster, our eyes swim at those visions OF
forgotten fairness of the days of long ago.
which still catch us IL their strong tolls Of
| grace.
| And passing fair the face may seem;
| Unknown the presence and the dream
'Tis she, though OF herself alas
| Less than her picture in the glass,
| Or than her image in the stream
How much and how little a lovely Dor
| trait tells US How it aids what knowl.
| edge we have of its subject How it makes
us want to know more of the LIES secret
hidden behind those deep eyes, the curves
of the beautiful mouth.
For myself, much as love the great and
| weli-know portraits of fair women, there
is a subtler pleasure in some visions of a
lady of whom l know no more than | can
5ell from her face, which looks at me from
the canvas as it looked long ago to the
painter who placed it there. We most of
US would say that we owe but small debt
OF gratitude to those learned men who
have dlsabused us of our fond idea that the
pale face of the golden haired girl Guido
painted is that of Beatrice Cenci. the
sweet victim of a stranger story Of pity and
terror, OF darker fate than the Greek
tragedians ever knew. We loved Beatrice
as we saw her appealing to US from out an
uniathomable solitude of pain we were
awed, struck dumb by the awfulness, the
mute sadness of her woe and now we are
told this is not Beatrice, only the head of
some unknown girl. What of that. Are
the sorrow and pain of those eyes less pro-
found Is the culver of those child lips
less infinitely touching, the "pity of it "
less great, because we do not know who
this girl is, the pathos of whose face
touches such "a sweet recoil of love and
pity"
Some of the portraits before which we
linger longest are those in which the
painter had told US the story of his life
and love. As Mirabell IN Congreve's
comedy, says to the woman he loves,
Beauty is the lovers gift, so women
loved by great painters or poets have lived
to us by their lovers portraits of them.
We know the Madonna face of Andrea del
Sartos wife-flower-lik yet hiding be.
meath its angelic purity of line and color
ing all the evil which wrought so hardly
with her husbands life.
Looking at RaphsePs Fornarina, it is
hard at fret to understand where In her
lay the charm which so moved man,
surely above all others sensitive to the
power of beauty but as we gaze at the
portrait of the woman whom Give New
come describes as being mot hand
some woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth,
and altogether most mahogany colored
person AS we look at her, remember
ing she was the lady of Raphael's lost
century OF sonnets-the face softens, the
mouth sweetens, the eyes fill with an in
etfable awe and joy we see in the woman
with the full-idded eyes and the broad,
low brow, the original type OF the Sistine
Madonna.
There are few portraits which affect one
so strangely as Leonsrdos Mona Lisa. Ii
is not sympathetic 1t is rather curiously
repellant-that strange, slow, subtle smile,
calm as a summer sunset searching the
hearts of gazers so that they felt as though
they would fain hide their faces in their
hands to avoid that slow, stealthy smile
that has no gladness in it, only some secret
which she knows well is hidden from all
but herself, the while she reads the hearts
and minds she looks at with those half
yelled, mysterious eyes. a mystery, over
mastering one with deadly fascination,
no good woman, but one whose silent calm
is stronger than rength-inscrutable un-
fathomsble, with that still smile.
There was another woman, loved by
mighty painter of the era, whom we know
not only through his means. Her own
words and works praise her-queenly wo-
man, perfect wife, 0ittoria Colonns, Mase
and Grace, and Buonarotti's friend. Little
need to speak OF her, the woman 'whose
soul was like star and dwelt apart.
Were there no portrait of her we yet could
fancy for ourselves how her fairness must
have been the outward expression of a most
fair mind. But there is chalk study of
her head in profile by Michael Angelo,
most noble in It's sad, severe beauty the
beauty of one who has suffered and con-
quered-crowned with strange, helmet
like headdress, with couchaut lion resting
above the massive braids of hair, with it's
heavy ripple, which fall at the side of the
worn cheek. Endurance, tenderness, faith
and strength-all these are typifed in that
grand head.
Who sat, wonder, for that most lovely
Madonna of Botticelli's in the National
| gallery-that maiden mother who, between
| the adoring angels, is yet so reverent and
| tender, with such sweet humility seated on
her pure lip, and her straight-Ed eyes
| Was she ever living woman or was there
only some faint resemblance of her in
| features to one who tested and firted with
| Alessandro while he sat painting his Vir-
gin!
| Titian's daughter lifts up her basket of
! fruit and flowers. and Palma's maidens
turn on US all the fullness OF their beauty.
Oh, queenly danes of Veronese Oh,
splendid ladies painted by Paris Bordone
and
red
On her neck the small head buoyant, like a bell
| flower on its bed
Was there ever one really 80 wonderful as
this imperial Titan in golden robes, rich
and sumptuous as the hush of an autumn
evening, with her tawny hair and eyes,
and warm tints of throat and cheek :?
Surely,
| II an evil spirit live in 80 fair house,
| Good angels will make haste to dwell with It.
Following these come other ladies,
painted by the cunning hands of Zucchero
and Sir Antonio More, the courtly women
who formed the escGdron de la refine mere,
the beauties of Elizabeths reign, and the
cold face set as it were in a framework of
jewels, of her who made "what men call
love deadly duel MARY Stuart. Ger
tainly, the tradition of the Queen of Scots
charm is not worthily sustained by her
portraits crafty, cat.like woman, with
steel eyes, is the impression left on us by
most of them.
A sweeter and more gracious train Of fair
forms follow Vandyke's ladies', pdtes
CONNIE IN beau Soir d'automne, with their
careless splendor. of satin robes clasped
| with iewels of rich curls twined with