DANTE, _Purgatorio_, canto xii. 1. 64.
What master of the pencil, or the style,
Had traced the shades and lines that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder? _Dead, the dead,_
_The living seemed alive; with clearer view_
_His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth_,
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went
Low bending.
--CARY.
Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than that it
should bring back, as in a mirror or vision, the aspect of things passed
or absent. The scenes of which he speaks are, on the pavement, for ever
represented by angelic power, so that the souls which traverse this
circle of the rock may see them, as if the years of the world had been
rolled back, and they again stood beside the actors in the moment of
action. Nor do I think that Dante's authority is absolutely necessary
to compel us to admit that such art as this _might_, indeed, be the
highest possible. Whatever delight we may have been in the habit of
taking in pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at
our will the canvas from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed
for ever, the image of some of those mighty scenes which it has been
our way to make mere themes for the artist's fancy; if, for instance,
we could again behold the Magdalene receiving her pardon at Christ's
feet, or the disciples sitting with Him at the table of Emmaus; and
this not feebly nor fancifully, but as if some silver mirror that had
leaned against the wall of the chamber, had been miraculously commanded
to retain for ever the colours that had flashed upon it for an
instant,--would we not part with our picture--Titian's or Veronese's
though it might be?
Yes, the reader answers, in the instance of such scenes as these, but
not if the scene represented were uninteresting.
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