There is something
more divine in these; for I suppose the first idea of a picture is real
inspiration, and all the subsequent elaboration of the master serves but
to cover up the celestial germ with something that belongs to himself.
At any rate, the first sketch is the more suggestive, and sets the
spectator's imagination at work; whereas the picture, if a good one,
leaves him nothing to do; if bad, it confuses, stupefies, disenchants,
and disheartens him. First thoughts have an aroma and fragrance in them,
that they do not lose in three hundred years; for so old, and a good deal
more, are some of these sketches.
None interested me more than some drawings, on separate pieces of paper,
by Perugino, for his picture of the mother and friends of Jesus round his
dead body, now at the Pitti Palace. The attendant figures are distinctly
made out, as if the Virgin, and John, and Mary Magdalen had each favored
the painter with a sitting; but the body of Jesus lies in the midst,
dimly hinted with a few pencil-marks.
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