There stands the powerful defender of the Catholic Church, master of French style, and most renowned pulpit orator of France, in episcopal robes, with abundant lace, which is the perpetual envy of the fair who look at this transcendent…
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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The portrait of Bossuet has everything to attract and charm.
Art in all its forms had become florid, if not meretricious; and Drevet was a representative of his age.
Less clear and simple than Nanteuil, and less severe than Edelinck, he gave to the face individuality of character, and made his works conspicuous in Art.
He was eminently a portrait engraver, which I must insist is the highest form of the art, as the human face is the most important object for its exercise.
I shall die before I cease often to contemplate it with ever new wonder.
The work which goes most to my blood, and of which Edelinck himself was justly proud, is the portrait of Champagne.
He knew that the way to take the poison from riches was to let the poor taste of them.
He could not abide beauty of intelligence without goodness of soul; and he preferred always the poor, having for them not only compassion, but a sort of reverence.
And who is this handsome man to whom the engraver has given a lease of fame?
As in music a simple heart-melody is often more effective than any triumph over difficulties or bravura of manner, so in engraving, the sense of the beautiful may prevail over all else; and this is the case with the Pomponne, although…
In proportion as multitudes are touched, there must be merit.
In disputing about beauty, we are too often lost in the variety of individual tastes; and yet each person knows when he is touched.
It is bold, perhaps, thus to exalt a single portrait, giving to it the palm of Venus; nor do I know that it is entirely proper to classify portraits according to beauty.
His original genius was refined by classical studies and quickened by diligence.
Among French masters Antoine Masson is conspicuous for brilliant hardihood of style, which, though failing in taste, is powerful in effect.
His prints show mastery of the art, making something like an epoch in its history.
Though only paper with black lines, it is, by the genius of the artist, as good as a picture.
It is broad, bold, strong, and instinct with life.
His prints are numerous, and many are regarded with favor; but in the long list not one is so sure of that longevity allotted to Art as his portrait of Titian, which bears date 1587, eleven years after the death of the latter.
Here are the lions, painted by themselves,--except, perhaps, the foremost of all, Michel Angelo, whose portrait seems the work of another.
Unquestionably the finest assemblage of portraits anywhere is that of the artists occupying two halls in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, being autographs contributed by the masters themselves.
Rembrandt turned from his great triumphs in his own peculiar school to portraits of unwonted power; so also did Rubens, showing that in this department his universality of conquest was not arrested.
The female figures of Titian, so much admired under the names of Flora, La Bella, his Daughter, his Mistress, and even his Venus were portraits from life.
Charles the Fifth stooped to pick up the pencil of Titian, saying, “It becomes Cæsar to serve Titian!” True enough; but this unprecedented compliment from the imperial successor of Charlemagne attests the glory of the portrait-painter.
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