The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects. 2. Ed Volume 5 - Allan Cunningham, 2nd Edition, Paperback

• Release Date   9/13/2013
• ISBN-13   9781236839060 | 978-1-236-83906-0
• ISBN   1236839064 | 1-236-83906-4
• Format   Paperback
• Author(s)   Allan Cunningham
• This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 edition. Excerpt: ...of novelty. and, finally, whether some ancient Highlander did or did not produce the whole, or any particular passages, no man now disputes but that the pages of " Ossian" do abound in poetry of the highest order. Sir J. Clerk readily entered into the feelings and wishes of the painter. sketches were made and approved, scaffolds raised. and to work he accordingly went, with all.the enthusiasm of one who believes he is earning an immortal name. But there is no work, however much it may be the offspring of one's own heart, that can be accomplished perhaps in the same spirit in which it was commenced. Men of taste, connoisseurs, patrons of the fine arts, were ready, with their dissonance of opinion, to excite pain in the mind of a sensitive artist: pain of mind was aggravated by pain of body. he had to lie so much on his back, while occupied with the ceiling of the hall, that his health failed. while, to add to other vexations, the searching spirit of enquiry and criticism began to sap more and more the lines of circumvallation within which Macpherson had intrenched himself. and that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, began to be doubted even among the Scotch. He painted on, nevertheless, and finished his very romantic undertaking. There are twelve principal paintings, representing some of the finest passages of the poems: 1. Ossian singing to Malvina. " Daughter of the hand of snow, I was not so mournful and blind when Everallan loved me." 2. The Valour of Oscar. " Behold, they fall before my son, like the groves in the desert when an angry ghost rushes through night, and takes their green heads in his hand. Cairbar shrinks from Oscar's sword, and creeps in darkness behind his stone. He lifted up his spear in...