VII

CARPACCIO’S APE

THIS then is Venice in her Tyrian time, parallel in the history of Israel to the reign of Solomon in alliance with Hiram, and the Egyptians with the ships of Tarshish, bringing home ivory, and apes, and peacocks.¹

I always used to wonder, in reading that history as a boy, what he wanted the apes for.

Look now to the Carpaccio [“The Return of the English Ambassadors”].² It has the most wonderful piece of chiaroscuro in it, in architecture against sky, that I ever saw in painting-the circular temple on the right. On the steps of it you will find an ape sitting, dressed; sitting all by himself, masterless, in full dress. Carpaccio, be assured, never puts in a piece of notable grotesque without meaning it to be noted. Almost while he was painting it, Albert Dürer was engraving the monkey at the feet of his most finished Madonna.³ You will find no monkeys at the feet of the Greek Athena or the Byzantine Mary. This is the first sign of the penetration into the mind of Venice, of the Northern spirit of the Jesting Grotesque; true Greek or Tyrian grotesque she had before, mystic and terrible-the Gorgon, the Fury, the Harpy, the Siren, but not the Ape.

Here sits on the temple steps the first figure occurrent of your Christmas pantomimes, your beloved Harlequin; know you him not for a Venetian mosaic? A piece of the Divine History of Ravenna, with the Power of Miracle in its hand, become a Jest.

Now look to the end of the room.⁴ You see, painted by Veronese, Christ at meat in the Pharisee’s house, but with difficulty, for in front is many a piece of pantomime going on, chiefly a dwarf-fool running with a dish, and getting hit over the head by a servant. True pantomime, you observe,-farther advanced in style.

And Venice saw her danger and knew it, and considered of it; and that Inquisition of State of hers, which you have been accustomed to hear

¹ [1 Kings x. 22: “For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram; once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.”]

² [No. 4 in the “St. Ursula” Series: see Introduction, p. lii., and Plate XLIX.]

³ [One of Dürer’s early engravings; for another reference to it, see Eagle’s Nest, § 151 (Vol. XXII. p. 225).]

⁴ [i.e., at the end of the room in the Academy at Venice, in which the pictures by Carpaccio and by Veronese were at the time exhibited. For the Veronese, see above, pp. 161, 188, and Plate LV.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]