The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fragment of a Dream.—The great Painters supposed to be Magicians. —The Beginnings of the Art.—Gildings on the Glories and Draperies.—Improvements under Giotto, &c.— The first Dawn of the true Style in Masaccio.—Studied by all the great Artists who followed him.—Leonardo da Vinci, with whom commenced the Golden Age of Painting.—His Knowledge of Mathematics and of Music.—His female Heads all like each other.—Triangular Faces.—Portraits of Mona Lisa, &c. —Picture of Vanity and Modesty.—His chef-d'œuvre, the Last Supper.—Faded and almost effaced.

Fill'd with the wonders I had seen,
In Rome's stupendous shrines and halls,
I felt the veil of sleep, serene,
Come o'er the memory of each scene,
As twilight o'er the landscape falls.
Nor was it slumber, sound and deep,
But such as suits a poet's rest—
That sort of thin, transparent sleep,
Through which his day-dreams shine the best.

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Methought upon a plain I stood,
Where certain wondrous men, 'twas said,
With strange, miraculous power endu'd,
Were coming, each in turn, to shed
His arts' illusions o'er the sight,
And call up miracles of light.
The sky above this lonely place,
Was of that cold, uncertain hue,
The canvass wears, ere, warm'd apace,
Its bright creation dawns to view.

But soon a glimmer from the east
Proclaim'd the first enchantments nigh ;
And as the feeble light increas'd,
Strange figures mov'd across the sky,
With golden glories deck'd, and streaks
Of gold among their garments' dyes ;

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And life's resemblance ting'd their cheeks,
But nought of life was in their eyes;—
Like the fresh-painted Dead one meets,
Borne slow along Rome's mournful streets.

But soon these figures pass'd away;
And forms succeeded to their place,
With less of gold, in their array,
But shining with more natural grace,
And all could see the charming wands
Had pass'd into more gifted hands.

Among these visions there was one ,
Surpassing fair, on which the sun,
That instant risen, a beam let fall,
Which through the dusky twilight trembled,
And reach'd at length, the spot where all
Those great magicians stood assembled.
And as they turn'd their heads, to view
The shining lustre, I could trace

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The bright varieties it threw
On each uplifted studying face ;
While many a voice with loud acclaim,
Call'd forth, “Masaccio” as the name
Of him, the' Enchanter, who had rais'd
This miracle, on which all gaz'd.

'Twas daylight now—the sun had risen,
From out the dungeon of old Night,—
Like the Apostle, from his prison
Led by the Angel's hand of light;
And—as the fetters, when that ray
Of glory reach'd them, dropp'd away ,
So fled the clouds at touch of day!
Just then, a bearded sage came forth,
Who oft in thoughtful dream would stand,
To trace upon the dusky earth
Strange learned figures with his wand ;

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And oft he took the silver lute
His little page behind him bore,
And wak'd such music as, when mute,
Left in the soul a thirst for more!

Meanwhile, his potent spells went on,
And forms and faces, that from out
A depth of shadow mildly shone,
Were in the soft air seen about.
Though thick as midnight stars they beam'd,
Yet all like living sisters seem'd,
So close, in every point, resembling
Each other's beauties—from the eyes
Lucid as if through crystal trembling,
Yet soft as if suffused with sighs,
To the long, fawn-like mouth, and chin,
Lovelily tapering, less and less,
Till, by this very charm's excess,
Like virtue on the verge of sin,
It touch'd the bounds of ugliness.

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Here look'd as when they liv'd the shades
Of some of Arno's dark-ey'd maids—
Such maids as should alone live on,
In dreams thus, when their charms are gone:
Some Mona Lisa, on whose eyes
A painter for whole years might gaze ,
Nor find in all his pallet's dyes,
One that could even approach their blaze!

Here float two spirit shapes , the one,
With her white fingers to the sun
Outspread, as if to ask his ray
Whether it e'er had chanc'd to play
On lilies half so fair as they!
This self-pleas'd nymph, was Vanity—
And by her side another smil'd,
In form as beautiful as she,

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But with that air, subdu'd and mild,
That still reserve of purity,
Which is to beauty like the haze
Of evening to some sunny view,
Softening such charms as it displays,
And veiling others in that hue,
Which fancy only can see through!
This phantom nymph, who could she be,
But the bright Spirit, Modesty?

Long did the learn'd enchanter stay
To weave his spells, and still there pass'd,
As in the lantern's shifting play,
Group after group in close array,
Each fairer, grander, than the last.
But the great triumph of his power
Was yet to come:—gradual and slow,
(As all that is ordain'd to tower
Among the works of man must grow,)
The sacred vision stole to view,
In that half light, half shadow shown,
Which gives to ev'n the gayest hue,
A sober'd, melancholy tone.

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It was a vision of that last ,
Sorrowful night which Jesus pass'd
With his disciples when he said
Mournfully to them—“I shall be
“Betray'd by one, who here hath fed
“This night at the same board with me.”
And though the Saviour, in the dream
Spoke not these words, we saw them beam
Legibly in his eyes (so well
The great magician work'd his spell),
And read in every thoughtful line
Imprinted on that brow divine,
The meek, the tender nature, griev'd,
Not anger'd, to be thus deceiv'd—
Celestial love requited ill
For all its care, yet loving still—
Deep, deep regret that there should fall
From man's deceit so foul a blight

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Upon that parting hour—and all
His Spirit must have felt that night,
Who, soon to die for human-kind,
Thought only, 'mid his mortal pain,
How many a soul was left behind
For whom he died that death in vain!

Such was the heavenly scene—alas
That scene so bright so soon should pass!
But pictur'd on the humid air,
Its tints, ere long, grew languid there ;
And storms came on, that, cold and rough,
Scatter'd its gentlest glories all—
As when the baffling winds blow off
The hues that hang o'er Terni's fall,—
Till, one by one, the vision's beams
Faded away, and soon it fled,
To join those other vanish'd dreams
That now flit palely 'mong the dead,—
The shadows of those shades, that go,
Around Oblivion's lake, below!

The paintings of those artists who were introduced into Venice and Florence from Greece.

Margaritone of Orezzo, who was a pupil and imitator of the Greeks, is said to have invented this art of gilding the ornaments of pictures, a practice which, though it gave way to a purer taste at the beginning of the 16th century, was still occasionally used by many of the great masters: as by Raphael in the ornaments of the Fornarina, and by Rubens not unfrequently in glories and flames.

Cimabue, Giotto, &c.

The works of Masaccio.—For the character of this powerful and original genius, see Sir Joshua Reynolds's twelfth discourse. His celebrated frescos are in the church of St. Pietro del Carmine, at Florence.

All the great artists studied, and many of them borrowed from Masaccio. Several figures in the Cartoons of Raphael are taken, with but little alteration, from his frescos.

“And a light shined in the prison ------ and his chains fell off from his hands.” Acts.

Leonardo da Vinci.

His treatise on Mechanics, Optics, &c. preserved in the Ambrosian library at Milan.

On dit que Léonard parut pour la première fois à la cour de Milan, dans un espèce de concours ouvert entre les meilleurs joueurs de lyre d'Italie. Il se présenta avec une lyre de sa facon, construit en argent. —Histoire de la Peinture en Italie.

He is said to have been four years employed upon the portrait of this fair Florentine, without being able, after all, to come up to his idea of her beauty.

Vanity and Modesty in the collection of Cardinal Fesch, at Rome. The composition of the four hands here is rather awkward, but the picture, altogether, is very delightful. There is a repetition of the subject in the possession of Lucien Bonaparte.

The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the Refectory of the Convent delle Grazie at Milan. See L'Histoire de la Peinture in Italie, liv. iii. chap. 45. The writer of that interesting work (to whom I take this opportunity of offering my acknowledgments, for the copy he sent me a year since from Rome,) will see I have profited by some of his observations on this celebrated picture.

Leonardo appears to have used a mixture of oil and varnish for this picture, which alone, without the various other causes of its ruin, would have prevented any long duration of its beauties. It is now almost entirely effaced.