FullReads

The distinguishing feature of Correggio’s work is his “putti.” He delighted in these well-fed, unspanked and needlessly healthy cherubs. These rollicksome, frolicsome, dimpled boy babies–and that they are boys is a fact which I trust will not be denied–he has them everywhere!

Paul Veronese brings in his omnipresent dog–in every “Veronese,” there he is, waiting quietly for his master. Even at the “Assumption” he sits in one corner, about to bark at the angels. The dog obtrudes until you reach a point where you do not recognize a “Veronese” without the dog–then you are grateful for the dog, and surely would scorn a “Veronese” minus the canine attachment. We demand at least one dog, as our legal and inborn right, with every “Veronese.”

So, too, we claim the cherubs of Correggio as our own. They are so oblivious of clothes, so beautifully indifferent to the proprieties, so delightfully self-sufficient! They have no parents; they are mostly of one size, and are all of one gender. They hide behind the folds of every apostle’s cloak, peer into the Magdalen’s jar of precious ointment, cling to the leg of Saint Joseph, make faces at Saint Bernard, attend in a body at the “Annunciation”–as if it were any of their business–hover everywhere at the “Betrothal,” and look on wonderingly from the rafters, or make fun of the Wise Men in the Stable.

They invade the inner Courts of Heaven, and are so in the way that Saint Peter falls over them, much to their amusement. They seat themselves astride of clouds, some fall off, to the great delight of their mates, and still others give their friends a boost over shadows that are in the way.

I said they had no parents–they surely have a father, and he is Correggio; but they are all in sore need of a mother’s care.

I believe it was Schiller who once intimated that it took two to love anything into being. But Correggio seems to have performed the task of conjuring forth these putti all alone; yet it is quite possible that Veronica Gambara helped him. That he loved them is very sure–only love could have made them manifest. This man was a lover of children, otherwise he could not have loved putti, for he sympathized with all their baby pranks, and sorrows as well.

One cherub bumps his head against a cloud and straightway lifts a howl that must have echoed all through Paradise. His mouth is open to its utmost limit; tears start from between his closed eyes, which he gouges with chubby fists, and his whole face is distorted in intense pigmy wrath. One might really feel awfully sorry for him were it not for the fact that he sticks out one foot trying to kick a playfellow who evidently hadn’t a thing to do with the accident. He’s a bad, naughty cherub–that is what he is, and he deserves to have his obtrusive anatomy stung, just a little, with the back of a hairbrush, for his own good.

This same cherub appears in other places, once blowing a horn in another’s ear; and again he is tickling a sleeping brother’s foot with a straw. These putti play all the tricks that real babies do, and besides have a goodly list of “stunts” of their own. One thing is sure, to Correggio heaven would not be heaven without putti; and the chief difference that I see between putti and sure-enough babies is, that putti require no care and babies do.

Then putti are practical and useful–they hold up scrolls, tie back draperies, carry pictures, point out great folks, feed birds, and in one instance Correggio has ten of them leading a dog out to execution. They carry the train of the Virgin, assist the Apostles, act as ushers, occasionally pass the poorbox, make wreaths and crowns–but, I am sorry to say, sometimes get into unseemly scuffles for first place.