RAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO.—TWO BIOGRAPHIES.* 'un first emotion that strikes

a critic on reading small bio-

graphies of such men as those whose names stand at the head of this article is one of pity. "What," we ask ourselves, "what

can any one find to say about the life and work of Raphael and Michael Angelo, within the brief compass of a hundred pages, which has not been said over and over again P" Indeed, it

seems doubtful whether any comment upon Raphael's work 'could be now made that. would not seem like the echo of a thrice-told tale. And the biographer, 'under these circum-

stances, especially the biographer of a cheap and popular series, is forced to fall back upon a few facts of life and death, stuffed out, as best may be, with anecdotes more or less apocryphal, and history of the "Little Arthur" kind, In the two bio- graphies with which we have to deal at present, the greatest fault is the endeavour to combine artistic comment with the plain facts of the artists' lives. Not that the two are incom-

patible in any way, but only because the writers of these biographies are not sufficiently acquainted with Art matters to render their criticisms interesting or original. No light, for instance, is thrown upon the work of Raphael by description of the following kind, nor can we imagine that, apart from

its questionable taste, it is calculated either to interest, amuse, or instruct even the most ignorant reader. Be it remembered that the picture the description of which follows in the quota- tion is one of the finest Raphael ever painted, and affords an excellent opportunity for noticing and explaining the peculiar qualities of the master's work.

In ` The Transfiguration' itself, we son the Savionr rising into the Air above Mount Tabor, in the midst of a light so glorious as to dazzle the spectator, and with Moses and Elijah also uplifted from the earth on either side. The moment is that of the bursting forth from the clouds of the words, ' This is my beloved Son : hear him !' and the Apostles Peter, James, and John, overwhelmed with awe, have prostrated themselves upon the mount. The whole scene is, as it were, bathed' in reverent solemnity, a little marred, however, by the introduction of the figures of St. Julian and St. Lawrence, who, though they kneel in adoration, do not appear to be impressed by the awful nature of the scene in which they bear a part to which they have no right. These saints are supposed to have been added at the request of Lorenzo do Medici, in honour of his father and his uncle, who were named after them. A touching contrast to the glorious Transfiguration, in which the human nature of our Lord is altogether +merged in the divine, is presented by the agony of the father in the scene below, when ho finds the hopes of his sou's cure disappointed, and for a moment we are almost angry at being thus recalled to a sense of the miseries possible in our earthly career. But as we look more closely into the picture, and note the gestures of the disciples, pointing upwards to him who alone can help, the beautiful harmony of the whole is suddenly revealed, and, with the sufferers, we are content to wait until the word is spoken which shall rebuke the devil, and sny to the tempest-tossed soul, ` Peace, be still.' " This is a fair sample of the critical comment throughout the Raphael biography, with which we need not further concern -ourselves, than to say that there is at the end of the book a useful chronology of Raphael's life, and a good, classified list of his principal paintings. The authorities are not given, but are pro- bably Passavant and Dr. Shringer, as the author of this biography has followed the above throughout the work, The drawings and engravings are not indexed on the plan of' number, but a list of the chief would have been a welcome addition to 'the work.

May we hint to the editor of these biographies, that they would. be considerably improved by the partial suppression of the somewhat gushing religious description, and the substitu- tion in each work, of a chapter devoted to a plain, straight-

• R plead By N, d'Anrors. U, iIs c e. By C. Cldment. Both published in 4' Biographies of lireat Artists." London : Simpson Low sad Co.

forward description of the style of the artist whose life is being told, his method of work, his peculiarities of colour and design, and last, but not least, his place among his contemporaries.

Those books being professedly written for people who are, in the main, ignorant of art, it is the more necessary that the eulogy bestowed should be given comparatively ; and how is the ignorant person to gain any knowledge of what constitutes great art, unless the points which make these men great, one in one way, and one in another, are dwelt upon carefully, their presence and their absence alike noted.

The same kind of fault is to be found in the biography of Michael Angelo, though in other respects this is far superior to the one of which we have been speaking. It is a translation from the French of Charles Cl6ment, and is written in a fairly lively and readable manner. Sometimes the author betrays a strange chronological inaccuracy, as, for instance, when he says that the second generation after Giotto comprised Petrarch, Brund- leschi, Ghiberti, Masaccio, and Domttello, and that this second generation had just died out when Michael Angelo was sent for by Lorenzo de Medici. This is almost as curious a group in one generation as " Homer, Plutarch, and Nicodemus." Not to speak of the others, Masaccio had been dead forty years at the time spoken of, Brunelleschi about the same time, while Tetrarch had slumbered peacefully for over a century, and died before either of the others was born We have given a sample of M. d'Anvers' artistic criticism, let us give one of M. Cldment's, bearing in mind the nationality

of the latter critic. We shall see, upon comparing the two,

that the dexterity with which the first writer has managed to conceal the deficit of real criticism by a flood of religious erne-

-ion, has its parallel in the manner in which the talented French author also evades all critical difficulties, by soaring into an abstract region in which detail and fact alike disappear. The

catalogue of Michael Angelo's works, given in this biography, cannot be a full one, as even the two grand, though half finished statues, now in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens are not included. There is also at the end of the book a similar chronological table to that in the biography of Raphael :-

" The ' Moses' dwells* amidst the masterpieces of ancient and modern sculpture, an event without in parallel, the representation, if not wholly faultless, still the most perfect, of an art unknown before. I will not speak of the consummate technical knowledge which Michael Angelo reveals in the modelling of this statue ; the Greeks had a knowledge as well as he, but it was of another sort. Whence comes it, however, that despite some trifling imperfec- tions, which it were out of place either to defend or to deny" (but surely, M. Clement, you might tell us what they are F) " and although this stern figure be far from attaining or pretending to the serene and tranquil beauty which the ancients regarded as the supreme limit of Art, whence comes it that even upon a soul the most forewarned, it produces an impression which cannot bo resisted'? It is because it is more than human, and it bears away the spirit into a world of thought and feelings which the ancients were loss familiar with than ourselves. Their vulaptuous art, while raising the form of man to heaven, kept down the soul upon the earth. The Moses of Michael Angelo has seen God, has listened to his voice like thunder, has preserved the terrible impression of that meeting upon Sinai; his unfathomable gaze is searching into the mysteries which he sees in prophetic vision, Is it the Moses of the Bible 7 I know not. Would Proxitoles and Phidias have repre. sented Lycurgus and Solon thus F We may boldly answer, no!"

And so on, ad ipfi,nilant. All this may be very true, but it will not help any one much to understand either the peculiarities of Michael Augelo's art, or.the real beauties of the statue in ques- tion. It is easier to go into mysteries, either religious or philo- sophical, than to write sober sense with a " kernel" in it, and accordingly in both these biographies we have the hysteria, and lack the fruit.