NOTES ON THE LOUVRE 451

Dutch painting, and their forms are perhaps a little vulgar. The bunch is held loosely in his hands; it is a handful, not a garland. The cross in St. John’s hand is hollow, like two pieces of bark nailed together.

§ 7. Titian [No. 1581: “The Pilgrims of Emmaus”] very noble.¹ Sunset in distance-the head of Christ, raised half against a column, is detached dark from the dark column, and light from the light sky, the dark part being relieved slightly by faint rays behind it. Monk with lilac robe on the right, with the hands clasped in the usual prescribed attitude for receiving the Sacrament. The trace of column is left, showing the original intention. The alteration is bold and sweeping, different from the rest of the sky. Christ, in blessing, lifts the second and first finger and thumb, the other two bent. A page is introduced with plume, waiting; the rigid pattern of the embroidered table-cloth is entirely given, as well as the flower shapes.

§ 8. The same subject by Paul Veronese [No. 1196]. The action of the hand is the same; so also in the little Christ of the Vierge aux Rochers (Leonardo). It is crowded with figures in full Venetian costume, but those of the disciples are simple and rather grand. The Christ is miserable, looking up like Rubini² in a last act. Parts of the sky, which by the position they hold would seem to have been blue, are now perfectly black. The tone of the greater part of the picture is not agreeable, but two little girls playing with a dog in the centre of the foreground, forming indeed the principal subject, are perfectly divine-the one on the left above all, her hand just laid on dog’s neck, lightly, and her face lifted in a pause of serious thought.

§ 9. August 17th.-I was a long while yesterday studying the execution of the two large Paul Veroneses,³ and noting the difference between their manly, fearless, fresco-like attainment of vast effect, in spite of details, and Landseer’s, or any other of our best manipulators’ paltry dwelling upon them. I have had a change wrought in me, and a strong one, by this visit to the Louvre, and know not how far it may go; chiefly in my full understanding of Titian, John Bellini, and Perugino, and my being able to abandon everything for them, or rather being unable to look at anything else.

I had a long ramble to-day among the churches; a fine Albert Dürer in one:⁴ and much pleased with the quaint interior of St. Genevieve. The Sainte Chapelle was blocked up with scaffolding, but it is a glorious thing, the crypt by far the most elegant I ever saw-characterised especially by the two vertical columns which support the circular groining of West end.

§ 10. To go on with the Louvre. Of the two large Paolo Veroneses, that of the Magdalen washing feet [No. 1193] is far the mellowest and noblest in tone, and the most careful in execution. The side figure of the woman with child in her arms on the left, is unrivalled, in my mind; whether for

¹ [For another notice of this picture, see Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. ix. § 18; and for the Veronese (§ 36), ibid., ch. iv. § 4, and vol. v. ch. vi. § 18.]

² [The great operatic tenor of the time (b. 1795, d. 1854.]

³ [i.e., the “Marriage at Cana” (No. 1192) and the “Dinner at Simon the Pharisee’s” (No. 1193), fully noted in 1849: see below, p. 461.]

⁴ [This may refer to St. Gervais, where, in one of the side chapels, is a “Passion,” a work of the German school, but not now attributed to Dürer.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]