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Penguin Island-Part11_Anatole France_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"regretting that he had lived to see a new form of art arising and the new



artists crowned with fame."

These lines, which I translateliterally, have inspired Sir James Tuckett with



what are perhaps the finest pages in his work. They form part of his "Breviary

for Aesthetes"; all the Pre-Raphaelites know them by heart. I place them here



as the most precious ornament of this book. You will agree that nothing more

sublime has been written since the days of the Hebrew prophets.



MARGARITONE'S VISION

Margaritone, full of years and labours, went one day to visit the studio of a



young painter who had lately settled in the town. He noticed in the studio a

freshly painted Madonna, which, although severe and rigid, nevertheless, by a



certain exactness in the proportions and a devilish mingling of light and

shade, assumed an appearance of relief and life. At this sight the artless and



sublime worker of Arezzo perceived with horror what the future of painting

would be. With his brow clasped in his hands he exclaimed:



"What things of shame does not this figure show forth! I discern in it the end

of that Christian art which paints the soul and inspires the beholder with an



ardent desire for heaven. Future painters will not restrain themselves as does

this one to portraying on the side of a wall or on a wooden panel the cursed



matter of which our bodies are formed; they will celebrate and glorify it.

They will clothe their figures with dangerous appearances of flesh, and these



figures will seem like real persons. Their bodies will be seen; their forms

will appear through their clothing. St. Magdalen will have a bosom. St. Martha



a belly, St. Barbara hips, St. Agnes buttocks; St. Sebastian will unveil his

youthful beauty, and St. George will display beneath his armour the muscular



wealth of a robust virility; apostles, confessors, doctors, and God the Father

himself will appear as ordinary beings like you and me; the angels will affect



an equivocal, ambiguous, mysterious beauty which will trouble hearts. What

desire for heaven will these representations impart? None; but from them you



will learn to take pleasure in the forms of terrestrial life. Where will

painters stop in their indiscreet inquiries? They will stop nowhere. They will



go so far as to show men and women naked like the idols of the Romans. There

will be a sacred art and a profane art, and the sacred art will not be less



profane than the other."

"Get ye behind me, demons," exclaimed the old master. For in prophetic vision



he saw the righteous and the saints assuming the appearance of melancholy

athletes. He saw Apollos playing the lute on a flowery hill, in the midst of



the Muses wearing light tunics. He saw Venuses lying under shady myrtles and

the Danae exposing their charming sides to the golden rain. He saw pictures of



Jesus under the pillar's of the templeamidst patricians, fair ladies,

musicians, pages, negroes, dogs, and parrots. He saw in an inextricable



confusion of human limbs, outspread wings, and flying draperies, crowds of

tumultuous Nativities, opulent Holy Families, emphatic Crucifixions. He saw



St. Catherines, St. Barbaras, St. Agneses humiliating patricians by the

sumptuousness of their velvets, their brocades, and their pearls, and by the



splendour of their breasts. He saw Auroras scattering roses, and a multitude

of naked Dianas and Nymphs surprised on the banks of retired streams. And the



great Margaritone died, strangled by so horrible a presentiment of the

Renaissance and the Bolognese School.



VI. MARBODIUS

We possess a precious monument of the Penguin literature of the fifteenth



century. It is a narrative of a journey to hell undertaken by the monk

Marbodius, of the order of St. Benedict, who professed a fervent admiration



for the poet Virgil. This narrative, written in fairly good Latin, has been

published by M. du Clos des Limes. It is here translated for the first time. I



believe that I am doing a service to my fellow-countrymen in making them

acquainted with these pages, though doubtless they are far from forming a






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