XX. MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS 81

perfectly right;¹ and that a picture thus conceived might have been deeply impressive, had it been more successfully executed; and a calmer, more continuous, comfortless grief expressed in the countenances of the women. Far better thus, than with the horrible analysis of agony, and detail of despair, with which this same scene, one which ought never to have been made the subject of painting at all, has been gloated over by artists of more degraded times.

¹ [Compare Ruskin’s discussion of the treatment of this subject by Raphael and Tintoret: Vol. IV. pp. 204, 272.]

XXIV. F

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