The immediate question, however, is not how
Raffaelle came by his reputation but whether, having got it, he will
continue to hold it now that we have a fair amount of his work at the
National Gallery.
I grant that the general effect of the picture if looked at as a mere
piece of decoration is agreeable, but I have seen many a picture
which though not bearing consideration as a serious work yet looked
well from a purely decorative standpoint. I believe, however, that
at least half of those who sit gazing before this Ansidei Raffaelle
by the half-hour at a time do so rather that they may be seen than
see; half, again, of the remaining half come because they are made to
do so, the rest see rather what they bring with them and put into the
picture than what the picture puts into them.
And then there is the charm of mere age. Any Italian picture of the
early part of the sixteenth century, even though by a worse painter
than Raffaelle, can hardly fail to call up in us a solemn, old-world
feeling, as though we had stumbled unexpectedly on some holy,
peaceful survivors of an age long gone by, when the struggle was not
so fierce and the world was a sweeter, happier place than we now find
it, when men and women were comelier, and we should like to have
lived among them, to have been golden-hued as they, to have done as
they did; we dream of what might have been if our lines had been cast
in more pleasant places--and so on, all of it rubbish, but still not
wholly unpleasant rubbish so long as it is not dwelt upon.
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