It cannot be denied that Pentgino owed his great superiority over his predecessors to his visit to Florence, where, whether he became the pupil of Verocchio or not, which is a matter of dispute, he was at least enabled to study the noble works of Masaccio. His taste was however still dry and mean, his design was meagre and feeble, though often correct, his draperies were stiff and in a little manner, yet his colouring was sometimes exceedingly rich, and for graceful delicacy of attitude and motion, and a softness and simplicity of expression, he surpassed all his contemporaries. But there is a symmetrical repetition and similarity in the disposition of his figures, which betray a total absence of anything like vigour or truth of composition, and which place him at an immeasurable distance from his great scholar. No pupils ever imitated their master so closely as, with the exception of Raffaelle, did those of Perugino ; and many of their works are reputed works of their master. Ilia most celebrated scholars were, Bernardino Pinturiechie ; Andrew Luigi of Assisi. called L'Ingegno on account of his great abilities, who became blind when still young ; Domenico and his son Orazio di Paris Alfani; Euscbio da S. Giorgio ; Giannicola da Perugia ; Lo Spagna ; Berto di Giovanni ; Sinibaldo da Perugia ; Adone Doni of Assisi ; and Palmerini of Urbino. The works of all these masters were more or less conspicuous for symmetrical com position and a profuse application of gold.
We now arrive at the pride ofi Perugino and the glory of the Roman School, Raffaello Sanzio &Urbino, the first q painters; for moral force in allegory and history, unrivalled ; for fidelity in portrait, unsurpassed; who has never been approached in propriety of invention, composition, or expression ; who is alined without a rival in design ; and in sublimity and grandeur, inferior to Michel Angelo alone, whose prophets and sibyls in the Capella Sistina are in these respects unques. tionably the triumpba of modern art.
It must not be supposed that Itaffaelle attained these great qualities intuitively : they were the result of long and intense application; and in the works of no artist is the progress of improvement so apparent as in those of Raffaelle. Ile painted in three styles : his first was that of Perngino. His second was an enlargement of that style in the taste of Fra Bartolomeo, and is termed his Florentine; but this change or Improvement in style was not effected through an acquaintance with that great painter alone, but also through the impression made upon Raffaelle's mind by the works of Masaccio, of Lionardo da Vinci, and also of Michel Angelo, at Florence. His third style, which is the subject we have now more particularly to consider, was peculiarly hi. own; although those magnificent works the Prophets and Sibyls of Michel Angelo were the principal causes of its ultimate fulness and grandeur. This third style, which is the proper style of Raffaelle, constitutes the Roman school in its full development, which is the least defective of all the schools of painting.
There is a degree to which the powers of imitation may be com bined with those of the imagination, which, when regulated by a just refinement of feeling or taste, constitutes the perfection of painting, and this degree, though not attained, was in the aggregate approxi mated more nearly by Raffaelle than by any other painter. He never
designed a figure which he did not inspire with appropriate sentiment; the affections of mankind were the sphere of his genius; from the calculating sage to the thoughtless infant, his works are the history of the human heart, and deservedly has he been entitled the "painter of the passions." The elements of his style are nowhere more apparent than in the Cartoons at Hampton Court. To particularise amidst so much excellence, and to single out the works in which Randle has been most eminently successful, is rather a delicate task ; yet perhaps the following examples may be instanced as being more decidedly con spicuous for those particular qualities which characterise his style :— for grandeur of design, the Heliodorus ; for sublimity of character and conception, the Madonna di San Sisto ; for composition and expression, the Cartoons ; and perhaps for invention and general technical excel. lence, the Transfiguration, his last performance. [RAFFAELLE, in Bioo. Div.] The style of Raffaelle has seldom been found congenial to their taste by the lovers of colour, and certainly those who consider the perfection of painting to consist in splendid colouring must not look for it in the works of the Roman school, but in those of Paul Veronese or of Ruben. Many critics have regretted that Raffaelle did not colour like Titian ; but colour was to Raffaelle a means, and not an end, as it was with the majority of the Venetian painters; and its effect is to dazzle and to obscure, rather than to enhance the essential qualities of the grand style. For as the painted face of a player harmonises with tho accompanying 'spectacle and the tone of light around, and would as certainly be ridiculous if exposed to the light of clay, so the Venetian colouring, which is in such perfect harmony with the subjects of that school and their general treatment, would as certainly be in discordance with those qualities which characterise the 'style of Even Ludovioo Caracci, the founder of the Eclectic school of Bologna, dis covered that Venetian colouring was inapplicable to the subjects which he chose for his own pencil. And Raffaelle would not have been the great painter that he proved himself to be, had ho chosen any other than the sombre colour for which he is so conspicuous, and which, eo far from being a defect in his style, is indeed an additional evidence of his profound genius. These remarks do not refer to the carnations particularly, which should always harmonise with the draperies, but to the composition of colours generally, to their choice and intensity, and also to the stuffs and materials of which the draperies are composed. Raffaelle rarely if ever painted silks or satins; most of the Venetians seldom painted anything else.