644.

THE RAPE OF THE SABINES.

Ascribed to Rinaldo Mantovano (Roman: early 16th century). See under 643, p. 326.

Romulus, the founder of Rome-so the story goes-had collected a motley crew of men about him, and demanded women from the neighbouring states wherewith to people his kingdom. And when they refused, he determined to take them by stratagem. He appointed a day for a splendid sacrifice, with public games and shows, and the neighbouring Sabines flocked with their wives and daughters to see the sight. He himself presided, sitting among his nobles, clothed in purple. At a signal for the assault, he was to rise, gather up his robe, and fold it about him. Many of the people wore swords that day, and kept their eyes upon him, watching for the signal, which was no sooner given than they drew them, and, rushing on with a shout, seized the daughters of the Sabines, but quietly suffered the men to escape. This is the subject of the upper compartment of this picture. But afterwards the Sabines fought the Romans in order to recover their daughters. The battle was long and fierce, until the Sabine women threw themselves between the combatants and induced them to ratify the accomplished union with terms of friendship and alliance. This is the subject of the lower compartment-the intervention of the Sabine women in the right-hand part, the reconciliation in the left.

69. ST. JOHN PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS. Pietro Francesco Mola (Eclectic-Bologna: 1612-1668)

1059.

The last, and greatest, herald of Heav'n's King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the desert wild :
There burst he forth-" All ye whose hopes rely
On God! with me amidst these deserts mourn;
Repent! repent! and from old errors turn."
Who listen'd to his voice, obey'd his cry?
Only the echoes, which he made relent,

Rung from their flinty caves-
s-Repent !—repent!
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN: Flowers of Zion.

VENICE: SAN PIETRO IN CASTELLO. Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See under 939, p. 316. A humble church, typical of the humble origin of Venice, a city founded on the sands by fugitives. The church stands on one of the outermost islets, where, in the seventh

century, it is said that St. Peter appeared in person to the bishop of Heraclea, and commanded him to found, in his honour, a church in that spot. "The title of Bishop of Castello was first taken in 1991; St. Mark's was not made the cathedral church till 1807. . . . The present church is among the least interesting in Venice; a wooden bridge, something like that of Battersea on a small scale, connects its island, now almost deserted, with a wretched suburb of the city behind the arsenal; and a blank level of lifeless grass, rotted away in places rather than trodden, is extended before its mildewed façade and solitary tower" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. Appendix iv.)

88. ERMINIA AND THE SHEPHERD.

Annibale Carracci (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609).
See under 93, p. 308.

A scene from the "Jerusalem Delivered" by Carracci's contemporary, Tasso. Erminia from the beleaguered city of Jerusalem had beheld the Christian knight, Tancred, whom she loved, wounded in conflict. Disguised in the armour of her friend Clorinda, wearing a dark blue cuirass with a white mantle over it, she stole forth at night to tend him. The sentinels espy her and give her chase. But she outstrips them all, and after a three days' flight finds herself amongst a shepherd family, who entertain her kindly. The old shepherd is busy making card-baskets, and listening to the music of his children. Their fear gives place to delight as the strange warrior, having dismounted from her horse and thrown off her helmet and shield, unbinds her tresses and discloses herself a woman

An old man, on a rising ground,

In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near,
Twig baskets wove; and listen'd to the sound
Trill'd by three blooming boys, who sat disporting round.
These, at the shining of her silver arms, .

Were seized at once with wonder and despair;
But sweet Erminia sooth'd their vain alarms,
Discovering her dove's eyes and golden hair.
"Follow," she said, "dear innocents, the care
Of heaven, your fanciful employ;

For the so formidable arms I bear,

No cruel warfare bring, nor harsh annoy

To your engaging tasks, to your sweet songs of joy."

From Landseer's Catalogue, p. 214.

938.

VENICE: REGATTA ON THE GRAND CANAL Canaletto (Venetian: 1697–1768). See under 939, p. 316. A state regatta—a pastime which owes its origin to Venice -in honour of the visit to the city of the King of Denmark in 1709. In the centre of the canal are the gondoliers, racing; to the sides are moored the spectators, the gala barges of the nobles conspicuous amongst them. The variegated building on the left is a temporary pavilion for the distribution of prizes. These regattas at Venice took the place of our royal processions here. "Wherever the eye turned, it beheld a vast multitude at doorways, on the quays, and even on the roofs. Some of the spectators occupied scaffoldings erected at favourable points along the sides of the canal; and the patrician ladies did not disdain to leave their palaces, and, entering their gondolas, lose themselves among the infinite number of the boats" (Feste Veneziane: quoted in Howells's Venetian Life, ii. 69). Another custom in which we have begun to imitate the Venetians, and which may be seen in this picture, is that of hanging out carpets and stuffs by way of decorations. "The windows and balconies," says the same account, decked with damasks, stuffs of the Levant, tapestries, and velvets ;" a very old Venetian custom: see under 937, p. 315.

were

191. THE YOUTHFUL CHRIST AND ST. JOHN. Guido (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642). See under 196, p. 321.

St. John is charming in the beauty of boyhood. In the youthful Christ the painter has striven after something more "ideal," and has produced a namby-pamby, goody-goody face -characteristic of the artist's narrow creed.

1058. VENICE: THE CANAL REGGIO.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See under 939, p. 316. One of the principal water-ways, after the Grand Canal, in Venice. The picture is a good instance of this painter's method of representing water. He "covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a certain number, I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave

touches, which are very properly symbolical of ripple.1 . . . If it be but remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either the image of the sky, or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would have something more of colour upon them than that opaque dead green. . . . Venice is sad and silent now to what she was in his time; but even yet, could I but place the reader at early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market boats, full-laden, float into groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves; and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, carried away in long streams upon the waves; and among them, the crimson fish-baskets, plashing and sparkling and flaming as the morning sun falls on their wet tawny sides; and above, the painted sails of the fishing-boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue, he would not be merciful to Canaletto any more (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. 18, 19).

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1 The visitor should contrast Canaletto's painting of still water with Turner's (see under XIX. 535, p. 630).

Visitors who have made the tour of the Italian Schools, and now wish to examine the Northern Schools historically, should go (1) to Room XI., and then (2) to Rooms X. and XII.

THOMSON.

Or the pictures in this room nearly all the more important are the works of three masters-Claude and the two Poussins. It is of them, therefore, that a few general remarks will here be made. It should be noticed in the first place how very different this French School of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is from the French School of to-day. The latter school is distinguished for its technical skill, which makes Paris the chief centre of art teaching in the world, but, also, and still more markedly, for its "excessive realism and gross sensuality." "A few years ago," adds Professor Middleton, "a gold medal was won at the Paris Salon by a 'naturalist' picture-a real masterpiece of technical skill. It represented Job as an emaciated old man covered with ulcers, carefully studied in the Paris hospitals for skin diseases." There could not be a greater contrast than between such art as that and the "ideal" landscapes of Claude, the Bacchanalian scenes of Poussin, or the soft girl-faces of Greuze.

Confining ourselves now to Claude and the Poussins