Even today the Italians, and especially the
Romans, have the art of sketching a man's picture in a couple of words.
This rapid apprehension of what is characteristic is an essential
condition for detecting and representing the beautiful. In poetry, it
is true, circumstantial description may be a fault, not a merit, since
a single feature, suggested by deep passion or insight, will often
awaken in the reader a far more powerful impression of the figure
described. Dante gives us nowhere a more splendid idea of his Beatrice
than where he only describes the influence which goes forth from her
upon all around. But here we have not to treat particularly of poetry,
which follows its own laws and pursues its own ends, but rather of the
general capacity to paint in words real or imaginary forms.
In this Boccaccio is a master--not in the 'Decameron,' where the
character of the tales forbids lengthy description, but in the
romances, where he is free to take his time. In his 'Ameto' he
describes a blonde and a brunette much as an artist a hundred years
later would have painted them--for here, too, culture long precedes
art. In the account of the brunette--or, strictly speaking, of the less
blonde of the two--there are touches which deserve to be called
classical. In the words 'la spaziosa testa e distesa' lies the feeling
for grander forms, which go beyond a graceful prettiness; the eyebrows
with him no longer resemble two bows, as in the Byzantine ideal, but a
single wavy line; the nose seems to have been meant to be aquiline; the
broad, full breast, the arms of moderate length, the effect of the
beautiful hand, as it lies on the purple mantle--all this foretells the
sense of beauty of a coming time, and unconsciously approaches to that
of classical antiquity.
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