The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-05-05

/ only renamed LOT the marvel
L Gus youth, Raphael to produce
masterpieces of portraiture. So he
added to his Julius II" and Leo
X the bold and buxom beauty of
La FOrnarina' ii. e., the baker S
LADY,, and the rich colors of Bal
thaSar Castiglione," and the non
chalant elf-contentment of youth
in the Portrait of a Young Man, -
and the dreamy delicacy of music
and love in The Violin Player" and
The Lady With a Veil"
Here the painter attainS the re-
pose of the finest statuary, while
adding to natural line the warmth
of color and the vitality of eX-
pressions caught in their essential
character. All the turbulence of
life is left behind here, while the
thing OF beauty, liberated from the
flow and stains of time, is lifted up
sub specie eternitatis, as if it would
be a JOY forever.
"All that is beautiful dies, said
Leonardo, except in art"
Alas. it dies there too, when time
breaks frescoes down from the wall,
or colors drop from the canvas, or
war wreaks its wrath upon beauty.
All the more should we cherish
loneliness while it lasts.
Raphael is the apex Of Penais-
sance art. Michelangelo WI be
greater, but his work will burgeon
with the exaggerations and manner
ismS of incipient decline. Think of
a man bringing forth, in a brief
life of thirty-seven years, 287 pic
lures and 576 drawings; and all
with classic measure and quiet ease,
with none of the distorting strains
of Angelo. none of the heartacheS
and dissipated forces of Leonardo.
Here is no "infinite pains" as a
Carlyle would expect to find; this
is a power that rather satisfies
Spencers conception of genius as
the ability to do with ease what
would require infinite pains in other
men.
Neither Leonardo nor Michel
angelo, in spite of their long lives
and the cultivation of their pow
ers, seems ever to have reached
the true enjoyment of artistic
production. The former, if we
look closely, wearied himself with
thought. and dissipated his pow
ers in mechanical inquiries (Goe-
the too; land we have to blame
the latter for spending his fair
est years among stone quarries.
getting out marble blocks and
slabs, so that, instead Of carrying
out his intention of carving all
the heroes of the Old and New
Testament, he has left only his
Moses as an example of what he
could and should have done.
Raphael, however, during his
whole life, ever increased in the
even facility of his work. We
see in him the development of the
intellectual and active powers,
which preserve such remarkable
balance that it may be affirmed
that no modern artist has
possessed such purity and COM
pletenesS of thought and such
cIearness of expression. In him
we have another instance OF a
talent that pours out to us the
freshest water from the prest.
source"
A ND now, parting from him, let
IN us look at Raphaels "Autor1-
tratto," or portrait of himself; 1t
stands in the Louvre on special
easel, and no man or woman can
pass it quickly by; hundreds re-
turn and return to it to seek the
secret of its infinite charm and its
quiet happiness.
Here again perfection comes, and
makes words meaningless. He as
a gentle youth, always a boy IN
transparent clarity of soul, and yet
with something of the wistfulness
of genius in him, something OF
the sadness that haunts lovers of
beauty-knowing its brevity, and
seeing ugliness everywhere.
When he was 81 he was at the
head of all the artists of Europe.
AS master architect of st. Peter
(for he was architect too), he lived
with a lordly retinue of aides, pupils,
and servants; and amid his other
tasks he joyed in the obligation he
had put upon himself, of making
complete record of the remains
of ancient art in Italy. While en-
gagged in excavations for this pur-
pose he caught a fere; and sudden
ly, after a few days Of illness, he
died; as if to say that which God