The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the Second

IX

With all his limitations of character and artistic scope, Longi remains a very interesting and highly respectable painter. In an age of social corruption he remained free from impurity, and depicted only what was blameless and of good repute. We cannot study his work without surmising that manners in Italy were more refined than in our own country at that epoch – a conclusion to which we are also led by Goldoni's, Carlo Gozzi's, and even Casanova's Memoirs. Morally licentious and politically decadent the Venetians undoubtedly were; but they were neither brutal, nor cruel, nor savage, nor sottish. Even the less admirable aspects of their social life – its wasteful luxury and effeminate indulgence in pleasure – have been treated with so much reserve by this humane artist, that youth and innocence can suffer no contamination from the study of his works. At the same time they are delightful for their gracious realism, for their naïve touch upon the follies of the period. Those who love to dream themselves back into the days of hoops and perukes – and there are many such among as now – should not neglect to make themselves acquainted with Pietro Longhi.