Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/157

Rh The decollation of John by Piazetta is, in this sense, a capital picture, if one can once allow the master's manner. John is kneeling, with his hands before him, and his right knee on a stone looking toward heaven. One of the soldiers who is binding him is bending round on one side, and looking into his face, as if he were wondering at his patient resignation. Higher up stands another, who is to deal the fatal blow. He does not, however, hold the sword, but makes a motion with his hands, like one who is practising the stroke beforehand. A third is drawing the sword out of the scabbard. The thought is happy, if not grand; and the composition is striking, and produces the best effect.

In the Church of the Eremitani I have seen pictures by Mantegna, one of the older painters, at which I am astonished. What a sharp, strict actuality is exhibited in these pictures! It is from this actuality, thoroughly true,—not apparent merely, and falsely effective, and appealing solely to the imagination,—but solid, pure, bright, elaborated, conscientious, delicate, and circumscribed; an actuality which had about it something severe, credulous, and laborious,—it is from this, I say, that the later painters proceeded (as I remarked in the pictures by Titian), in order that by the liveliness of their own genius, the energy of their nature, illumined at the same time by the mind of the predecessors, and exalted by their force, they might rise higher and higher, and, elevated above the earth, produce forms that were heavenly indeed, but still true. Thus was art developed after the barbarous period.

The hall of audience in the town-house, properly designated by the augmentative Salone, is such a huge enclosure, that one cannot conceive it, much less recall it to one's immediate memory. It is three hundred feet long, one hundred feet broad, and one hundred feet high, measured up to the roof, which covers it quite in. So accustomed are these people to live in the