Complete. Chapter v., Part III., Book I., of “The Genius of Christianity.”

WITH a few variations required by the technical part of the art, our remarks on painting are equally applicable to sculpture.

  The statue of Moses by Michael Angelo, at Rome; Adam and Eve by Baccio, at Florence; the Vow of Louis XIII. by Coustou, at Paris; St. Denys by the same; the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, the production of the joint genius of Lebrun and Girardon; the monument of Colbert, executed after the design of Lebrun, by Coyzevox and Tuby; Christ, the Mother of Pity, and the Eight Apostles, by Bouchardon, and several other statues of the religious kind, prove that Christianity understands the art of animating the marble full as well as the canvas.

  It were, however, to be wished that sculptors would in future banish from their funeral compositions those skeletons which they have frequently introduced in monuments. Such phantoms are not suggested by the genius of Christianity, which depicts death so fair for the righteous.

  It is equally necessary to avoid representations of corpses (however meritorious the execution), or humanity sinking under protracted infirmities. A warrior expiring on the field of honor in the full vigor of manhood may be very fine; but a body emaciated by disease is an image which the arts reject, unless accompanied by some miracle, as in the picture of St. Charles Borromeo. Exhibit, then, upon the monument of the Christian, on the one hand his weeping family and his dejected friends, on the other, smiling hope and celestial joys. Such a sepulchre, displaying on either side the scenes of time and of eternity, would be truly admirable. Death might make his appearance there, but under the features of an angel at once gentle and severe; for the tomb of the righteous ought always to prompt the spectator to exclaim, with St. Paul: “O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”