Even the
most cock-sure of our moderns might hesitate to emulate Michelangelo in
his calm destruction of three frescoes by Perugino to make room for his
own "Last Judgment." He, at least, had the full courage of his
convictions, and his opinion of Perugino is of record.
Not all of us would consider even Michelangelo's arrogance entirely
justified, but it is not only the Michelangelos who have had this belief
in themselves. Apparently the confidence of progress has been as great
in times that now seem to us decadent as in times that we think of as
truly progressive. The past, or at least the immediate past, has always
seemed "out of date," and each generation, as it made its entrance on
the stage, has plumed itself upon its superiority to that which was
leaving it. The architect of the most debased baroque grafted his
"improvements" upon the buildings of the high Renaissance with an
assurance not less than that with which David and his contemporaries
banished the whole charming art of the eighteenth century. Van Orley and
Frans Floris were as sure of their advance upon the ancient Flemish
painting of the Van Eycks and of Memling as Rubens himself must have
been of his advance upon them.
We can see plainly enough that in at least some of these cases the sense
of progress was an illusion.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67