Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/37

Rh. Then they stand before all the wonderful visions of which they have no true inkling, and pretend to criticise them. In this picture there are three zones or planes, whatever you please to call them, much as there are in the “Transfiguration.” Below stand saints and martyrs, with figures expressing suffering and weariness; pain, despair almost, is stamped upon their features; one, clad in the richly-coloured robes of a bishop, gazes upward with a keen, bitter longing; he seems almost to weep, yet he cannot see the presence actually hovering above him. The spectator may see it, however—in the cloud above is seated the Madonna with the Child; her countenance is bright, and round her are angels carrying many crowns; the Child holds one of these, and seems about to crown the saints below, but the mother holds it back for a moment. The contrast between the sorrowful region below, where St. Sebastian gazes with a stern almost indifferent expression before him, and the radiant calm above where the crowns stand ready in the clouds, is indeed very noble. High again above the group of the Madonna hovers the Paraclete, with brilliant light radiating from his form; and this is the key-stone to the arch. It just occurs to me that Goethe, during his first stay in Rome, admired this picture and describes it, but I have not the book by me, and so cannot consult it to see how far he concurs with my description. He speaks of it at length. Then it was in the Quirinal, and was afterwards brought to the Vatican. Whether it was painted by commission, as these people say, or not, makes no difference; he has