human
Death of Moses, the first picture which he sent from Rome to the Salon, was entirely pieced together out of Raphael and Michael Angelo. After that he laid himself out to provide England and America with those women, more or less fully attired, who bore sometimes biblical, sometimes literary names: Delilah, the Shulamite woman, Jephthah's daughter, Ruth, Tamar, Flora, Echo, Psyche, Hero, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Penelope, Phædra, Desdemona, Fiammetta, Francesca da Rimini, Pia dei Tolomei--an endless procession. But the only variety in this poetical seraglio lay in the inscriptions on the labels; the way in which the figures were represented was always the same. His works are pictures blamelessly drawn, moderately well painted, which leave one cold and untouched at heart. They possess that unusual polish and that dexterity of exposition which, like good manners in society, create a favourable impression, but are insufficient in themselves to make a man a pleasant companion. Nowhere is there anything that takes hold upon the soul, nowhere any touch to prove that the artist has felt anything in his painting, or force the beholder to feel for himself. The unvarying faces of his figures, with their eternal dark-rimmed eyes, resemble not living human beings but painted plaster casts. One would take his
gpt
Cleopatra, apathetically observing the operation of the poison, to be stuffed, like the panther at her feet. One seeks in vain for a figure that is sincere or interesting, for a face alluring in its truth to nature. His
human
Venus