I cannot
help thinking that the sculptor intentionally made every feature what it
is, and calculated them all with a view to the desired effect. Whatever
rules may be transgressed, it is a noble and beautiful face,--more so,
perhaps, than if all rules had been obeyed. I wish Powers would do his
best to fit the Venus's figure (which he does not deny to be admirable)
with a face which he would deem equally admirable and in accordance with
the sentiment of the form.
We looked pretty thoroughly through the gallery, and I saw many pictures
that impressed me; but among such a multitude, with only one poor mind to
take note of them, the stamp of each new impression helps to obliterate a
former one. I am sensible, however, that a process is going on, and has
been ever since I came to Italy, that puts me in a state to see pictures
with less toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more
sensible of beauty where I saw none before. It is the sign, I presume,
of a taste still very defective, that I take singular pleasure in the
elaborate imitations of Van Mieris, Gerard Douw, and other old Dutch
wizards, who painted such brass pots that you can see your face in them,
and such earthen pots that they will surely hold water; and who spent
weeks and months in turning a foot or two of canvas into a perfect
microscopic illusion of some homely scene.
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