I was predetermined not to like them for two
reasons: first, that I dislike allegorical subjects; and second, that
I hate and despise that Medici family and all that belongs to them. So
no sympathy with the subjects blinded my eyes, and drew me gradually
from all else in the hall to contemplate these. It was simply the love
of power and of fertility that held me astonished, which seemed to
express with nonchalant ease what other painters attain by laborious
efforts. It occurred to me that other painters are famous for single
heads, or figures, and that were the striking heads and figures with
which these pictures abound to be parcelled out singly, any one of
them would make a man's reputation. Any animal of Rubens, alone, would
make a man's fortune in that department. His fruits and flowers are
unrivalled for richness and abundance; his old men's Leads are
wonderful; and when he chooses, which he does not often, he can even
create a pretty woman. Generally speaking his women are his worst
productions. It would seem that he had revolted with such fury from
the meagre, pale, cadaverous outlines of womankind painted by his
predecessors, the Van Eyks, whose women resembled potato sprouts grown
in a cellar, that he altogether overdid the matter in the opposite
direction.
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