This picture cannot be engraved. No engraving is more than a
diagram, to show the places of the figures. For, besides its mesmeric
life, which no artist can reproduce, there is a balancing of colors, a
gorgeousness about it, as if he had learned coloring from the great
Master himself. Even in the overpowering human effect of this piece,
it is impossible not to perceive that every difficulty which artists
vaunt themselves on vanquishing has in this piece been conquered with
apparently instinctive ease, simply because it was habitual to do so,
and without in the least distracting the attention from the great
moral. Magical foreshortenings and wonderful effects of color appear
to be purely incidental to the expression of a great idea. I left this
painting as one should leave the work of a great religious master--
thinking more of Jesus and of John than of Rubens.
After this we went through many galleries and churches devoted to his
works; for Antwerp is Rubens's shrine. None of them impressed me, as
compared with this. One of his Madonnas, however, I must not forget to
describe, it was a conceit so just like him.
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