Art has daemonic power, it takes
hold of us wholly, and in proportion to our faculty of receptiveness
we understand it more or less fully. Architecture can hold us in this
way, sculpture can, a great city can with its architecture and
associations combined. Rome _does_. The very essence of the artistic
quality hangs round the old walls of Rome. Rome itself can teach us,
enter into us, possess us in a way of its own. The great bond of
similarity between all the arts is their having this _possessing_
power, this revelation of ideas, in whatever form they are expressed.
Rafael in the exquisite outline of the peasant girl's face, saw
without conscious effort the vision of maternity, as the perfect
form of the Madonna della Seggiola rose before him. This is
idealism--seeing the idea in the object of contemplation. And the
spectator, gazing at the picture, also without consciousness of
effort, is moved into "a passionate tenderness, which he knows not
whether he has given to heavenly beauty or earthly charm"; he feels
motherhood, and to quote again Mr. Henry James in "The Madonna of the
Future," he is intoxicated with the fragrance of the "tenderest
blossom of maternity that ever bloomed on earth.
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