The real love with which
these wonderful pictures are caressed by the careful, thoughtful artist
makes them most precious. Every little flower is delicately and
artistically done, and everything is invested with a sort of sacred
reverence by this earnest Pre-Raphaelite. One or two Van Eycks have the
same splendor and depth of feeling. These pictures look as if they were
painted yesterday, so clear and brilliant are their colors.
It is a pleasant circumstance, that some of the great Venetian pictures
in the gallery here were gained for Spain by the judgment and taste of
Velasquez. When he went to Italy with a commission from Philip IV.,
which it must have delighted him to execute, "to buy whatever pictures
were for sale that he thought worth purchasing," he spent some time in
Venice, and there bought, among other things, the Venus and Adonis of
Paul Veronese, and several of the works of Tintoretto. The Titians had
come to Spain before, and it was from the study of them, perhaps, that
Velasquez learned to paint so well. At any rate, we know what he
thought of Titian; for Mr. Sterling gives an extract from a poem by a
Venetian, Marco Boschini, which was published not long after
Velasquez's journey to Italy, in which part of a conversation is given
between him and Salvator Rosa, who asked him what he thought of
Raphael.
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