Art Criticism

First bring me Raffael, who alone hath seen 

In all her purity heaven’s virgin queen,          

Alone hath felt true beauty; bring me then   

Titian, ennobler of the noblest men;   

And next the sweet Correggio, nor chastise          

His little Cupids for those wicked eyes.           

I want not Rubens’s pink puffy bloom,           

Nor Rembrandt’s glimmer in a dusty room.  

With those, and Poussin’s nymph-frequented woods,      

His templed heights and long-drawn solitudes,               

I am content, yet fain would look abroad      

On one warm sunset of Ausonian Claude.

Walter Savage Landor