418 VENETIAN INDEX

applied to works of the purest religious art, it is anything but wise as respects works of colour. Tintoret is never quite himself unless he has fur or velvet, or rich stuff of one sort or the other, or jewels, or armour, or something that he can put play of colour into, among his figures, and not dead folds of linsey-wolsey; and I believe that even the best pictures of Raffaelle and Angelico are not a little helped by their hems of robes, jewelled crowns, priests’ copes, and so on; and the pictures that have nothing of this kind in them, as for instance the “Transfiguration,”¹ are to my mind not a little dull.

20. Temptation. This picture singularly illustrates what has just been observed; it owes great part of its effect to the lustre of the jewels in the armlet of the evil angel, and to the beautiful colours of his wings. These are slight accessories apparently, but they enhance the value of all the rest, and they have evidently been enjoyed by the painter. The armlet is seen by reflected light, its stones shining by inward lustre; this occult fire being the only hint given of the real character of the Tempter, who is otherways represented in the form of a beautiful angel, though the face is sensual; we can hardly tell how far it was intended to be therefore expressive of evil; for Tintoret’s good angels have not always the purest features; but there is a peculiar subtlety in this telling of the story by so slight a circumstance as the glare of the jewels in the darkness. It is curious to compare this imagination with that of the mosaics in St. Mark’s, in which Satan is a black monster, with horns, and head, and tail, complete. The whole of the picture is powerfully and carefully painted, though very broadly; it is a strong effect of light, and therefore, as usual, subdued in colour. The painting of the stones in the foreground I have always thought, and still think, the best piece of rock drawing before Turner, and the most amazing instance of Tintoret’s perceptiveness afforded by any of his pictures.²

21. St. Rocco. Three figures occupy the spandrils of the windows above this and the following picture, painted merely in light and shade, two larger than life, one rather smaller. I believe these to be by Tintoret; but as they are quite in the dark, so that the execution cannot be seen, and very good designs of the kind have been furnished by other masters, I cannot answer for them. The figure of St. Rocco, as well as its companion, St. Sebastian, is coloured; they occupy the narrow intervals between the windows, and are of course invisible under ordinary circumstances. By a great deal of straining of the eyes, and sheltering them with the hand from the light, some little idea of the design may be obtained. The “St. Rocco” is a fine

¹ [By Raphael in the Picture Gallery of the Vatican: see a similar reference in Modern Painters, vol. iv. ch. iii. § 23.]

² [For another reference to the figure of Satan in this picture, see Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 319); and for notices of the rock drawing, ibid. (pp. 244, 285), and “Review of Eastlake’s History of Oil-Painting” (On the Old Road, 1899, i. § 133, reprinted in Vol. XII.). J. A. Symonds, in the critique already referred to (see note in Vol. IV. p. 268), upon Ruskin’s account of these pictures, makes him say “background” instead of “foreground,” adds on his own account “Now there are no stones in the background,” and founds on this misquotation certain “painful” conclusions!]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]