29 ‘All the sons of God shouted for joy!’
29 ‘All the sons of God shouted for joy!’
As regards the treatment of angels in the more recent productions of art, the painters and sculptors have generally adhered to received and known types in form and in sentiment. The angels of the old Italians,Giotto and Frate Angelico, have been very well imitated by Steinle and others of the German school: the Raffaelesque feeling has been in general aimed at by the French and English painters. Tenerani had the old mosaics in his mind when he conceived that magnificent colossal Angel of the Resurrection seated on a tomb, and waiting for the signal to sound his trumpet, which I saw in his atelier, prepared I believe for the monument of the Duchess Lanti.[56]
I pause here, for I have dwelt upon these celestial Hierarchies, winged Splendours, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, till my fancy is becoming somewhat mazed and dazzled by the contemplation. I must leave the reader to go into a picture-gallery, or look over a portfolio of engravings, and so pursue the theme, whithersoever it may lead him, and itmaylead him, in Hamlet’s words, ‘to thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul!’[57]