INTRODUCTION lvii

of execution.”¹ Even so, however, the praise is felt by many to be overstrained; but for the rest, Ruskin’s efforts to make this charming painter better known have met with general success. In Venice, especially, they have been followed up by Signor Molmenti’s two books, already quoted; his study of the “St. Ursula” Series is the more interesting from the fact that in his atlas of plates the pictures are shown with conjectural restorations of the portions which were hacked off in 1647. More recently he has issued an elaborately illustrated monograph on the work of Carpaccio generally.²

“ST. MARK’S REST”

St. Mark’s Rest falls into two sections. Chapter ix. is an additional chapter, first issued in 1884 as an Appendix; it was written by Mr. Wedderburn, being a detailed description of the mosaics of the Baptistery, briefly noticed by Ruskin himself in an earlier chapter. Chapters x. and xi. (originally issued as a “First” and “Second Supplement”) are studies, by Ruskin and Mr. J. R. Anderson respectively, of Carpaccio’s pictures. The other section of the book (chaps. i.-viii.) is that to which the sub-title applies; it consists of studies in “The History of Venice, written for the help of the few travellers who still care for her monuments.” It was written for the most part during Ruskin’s sojourn in Venice in 1876-1877. Chapters i.-iii. were printed and published before he left, and chaps. iv.-vii. (as also the present ch. x.) shortly after his return to England. His serious illness in 1878 delayed the publication of chaps. viii. and xi. (see p. 400). It also prevented Ruskin from working up much additional material which he had collected at Venice. A large amount of such material was found among his papers; some of this, being interesting and carefully written, is now added in Appendices I.-VIII. In going through his papers at some later date, Ruskin noted this material as “all useful, and to be got out as fast as I can.”

Two other Appendices (IX. and X.), touching upon Carpaccio and characteristics of the Venetian School, include matter which Ruskin wrote for his intended continuation of The Laws of Fésole. It was to deal principally with colour, and to be called The Laws of Rivo Alto (see above, p. xlii. and n.). Those who are not acquainted at first hand with the body of Ruskin’s writings upon art suppose him to have been insensitive to, and indifferent of, the purely pictorial side of pictures. His notes on a picture by Carpaccio as, in Mr. Whistler’s language, “a harmony of crimson and white” (p. 453), may in this connexion be noted.

¹ See also Vol. XI. p. 369.

² Gustavo Ludwig e Pompeo Molmenti: Vittore Carpaccio, La Vita e Le Opere, con 225 Illustrazioni nel testo e 62 Tavole, Milano, 1906.

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