"Shall I utter any more heresies? I am an unbeliever in Raphael's
'Transfiguration'--the scream of that devil-possessed boy, in the lower
part of the figure of eight (a stolen boy too), jars the whole music of
the composition. On Michael Angelo's great wall, the grotesque and
terrible are not out of place. What an awful achievement! Fancy the state
of mind of the man who worked it--as alone, day after day, he devised and
drew those dreadful figures! Suppose in the days of the Olympian dynasty,
the subdued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a palace for Jove, they
would have brought in some such tremendous work: or suppose that Michael
descended to the Shades, and brought up this picture out of the halls of
Limbo. I like a thousand and a thousand times better to think of
Raphael's loving spirit. As he looked at women and children, his
beautiful face must have shone like sunshine: his kind hand must have
caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. If I protest against the
'Transfiguration,' and refuse to worship at that altar before which so
many generations have knelt, there are hundreds of others which I salute
thankfully.
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