ROCCO, SCUOLA DI SAN 423

seen above, through an opening in the clouds. There are at least ten or twelve other pictures in which the form of the Supreme Being occurs, to be found in the Scuola di San Rocco alone; and in every one of these instances it is richly coloured, the garments being generally red and blue, but in this picture of the manna the figure is snow white. Thus the painter endeavours to show the Deity as the Giver of Bread, just as in the “Striking of the Rock” we saw that he represented Him as the Lord of the Rivers, the Fountains, and the Waters. There is one other very sweet incident at the bottom of the picture; four or five sheep, instead of pasturing, turn their heads aside to catch the manna as it comes down, or seem to be licking it off each other’s fleeces. The tree above, to which the drapery is tied, it the most delicate and delightful piece of leafage in all the Scuola; it has a large sharp leaf, something like that of a willow, but five times the size.

26. Jacob’s Dream. A picture which has good effect from below, but gains little when seen near. It is an embarrassing one for any painter, because angels always look awkward going up and down stairs; one does not see the use of their wings. Tintoret has thrown them into buoyant and various attitudes, but has evidently not treated the subject with delight; and it is seen to all the more disadvantage because just above the painting of the “Ascension,” in which the full fresh power of the painter is developed. One would think this latter picture had been done just after a walk among hills, for it is full of the most delicate effects of transparent cloud, more or less veiling the faces and forms of the angels, and covering with white light the silvery sprays of the palms, while the clouds in the “Jacob’s Dream” are the ordinary rotundities of the studio.

27. Ezekiel’s Vision. I suspect this has been repainted, it is so heavy and dead in colour; a fault, however, observable in many of the smaller pictures on the ceiling, and perhaps the natural result of the fatigue of such a mind as Tintoret’s. A painter who threw such intense energy into some of his works can hardly but have been languid in others in a degree never experienced by the more tranquil minds of less powerful workmen; and when this languor overtook him whilst he was at work on pictures where a certain space had to be covered by mere force of arm, this heaviness of colour could hardly but have been the consequence: it shows itself chiefly in reads and other hot hues, many of the pictures in the Ducal Palace also displaying it in a painful degree. This “Ezekiel’s Vision” is, however, in some measure worthy of the master, in the wild and horrible energy with which the skeletons are leaping up about the prophet; but it might have been less horrible and more sublime, no attempt being made to represent the space of the Valley of Dry Bones, and the whole canvas being occupied only by eight figures, of which five are half skeletons. It is strange that, in such a subject, the prevailing hues should be red and brown.

28. Fall of Man. The two canvases last named are the most considerable in size upon the roof, after the centre pieces. We now come to the smaller subjects which surround the “Striking the Rock”; of these, this “Fall of Man” is the best, and I should think it very fine anywhere but in the Scuola di San Rocco: there is a grand light on

[Version 0.04: March 2008]