The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow. W.b. Yeats
About This Quote

The historian, Mr. Ruskin, has described the pictures of Raphael as "the most beautiful things that were ever painted." He goes on to say that they are Sistine Chapel pictures, which he describes as "a general history of the world in pictures." The most beautiful things that were ever painted may be said to be those of Raphael. There is something inexpressibly touching in these paintings; they are the expression of a soul familiar with all human failings; yet they are perfect works of art. They are like a mirror, which does not reflect everything at once, but only what it is held up to; like a mirror like that, they contain nothing but that perfection which was necessary to their purpose; like a mirror they show us for one instant only the reflection of what is before them, and then they return us to ourselves, and leave us solitary and alone. It may be said that this painting has no history; like the universe itself it is eternal.

The artist had no time to work out his thoughts about the world once for all, so he set himself to work out his thoughts about one man's experience of the world over and over again. Mr. Ruskin goes on to say: "The conception of beauty must have been worked out by the artist with all the intensity of his nature before he could have begun its representation on canvas. For beauty is not at once produced by imitation without effort.

It comes only slowly into being by the continual effort of one who is working for it." "It was necessary that Raphael should have worked for beauty for many years before he could make this picture."

Source: Rosa Alchemica

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