File:The midsummer of Italian art (1911) (14759895136).jpg

Identifier: midsummerofitali00stea (find matches)
Title: The midsummer of Italian art
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Stearns, Frank Preston, 1846-1917
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Publisher: Boston, R.G. Badger, Gorham Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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, from the simplest genresubjects to the grandest religious compositions. Hisflesh tints were compared to Titians, his chiaroscurowas only surpassed by Correggios, his drawing viewwith that of the greatest of the Italians. Sir JoshuaReynolds has said of Rubens that he possessed qualitiesas a painter which no other artist has equalled. If hiscoloring has not the peculiar charm of Murillo and Rem-brandt, or his drawing the plain ideality of Durer, he hascertainly excelled these masters in dramatic power andthe great variety of his compositions. No Frenchpainter has ever approached him. Rubens did not go to England until 1628, fifteen yearsafter Shakespeares death, but he sojourned there at atime when Shakespeares plays were at the height oftheir popularity,—before the Puritanic reaction set in,—and it is a foregone conclusion that he must have seenthem acted and that they exercised a decided influenceon his own art. The English school of Sir Joshua Reynolds and his m ?= D ~ 5C Z W z
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Appendix. 307 successors was founded on the art of Rubens; and fromthis was derived the American school of Copley, Trum-bull, and AUston; until William Morris Hunt introducedthe Millet vogue (with its expressionless faces) and theRembrandt chiaroscuro. Max Rooses, Hermann Grimm, and other Continen-tal critics have compared Rubens to Shakespeare; butthis should not be taken too literally. The compari-son between a poet and a painter is at best a relativeone, and can only apply on certain lines which thesister arts pursue in common. Raphael, Tintoretto,and Rubens have been compared to Shakespeare, and thenatural reason is because they are the most dramatic ofpainters. No one has thought of comparing Michel An-gelo to Shakespeare; they are as unlike as the cypressand the oak; and yet he is the only artist that may besaid to have rivalled Shakespeare in originality andfame. Rubens resembles Shakespeare in his blithesomeness,his dramatic power, and the almost exuberant life whichhe depicts

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