s intention.

* * * * *

XXXIV.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

The treatment of this subject was, in Giotto's time, so rigidly fixed
by tradition that it was out of his power to display any of his own
special modes of thought; and, as in the Bearing of the Cross, so
here, but yet more distinctly, the temporary circumstances are little
regarded, the significance of the event being alone cared for. But
even long after this time, in all the pictures of the Crucifixion by
the great masters, with the single exception perhaps of that by
Tintoret in the Church of San Cassano at Venice, there is a tendency
to treat the painting as a symmetrical image, or collective symbol of
sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation. Even in
Tintoret's great Crucifixion in the School of St. Roch, the group of
fainting women forms a kind of pedestal for the Cross. The flying
angels in the composition before us are thus also treated with a
restraint hardly passing the limits of decorative symbolism. The
fading away of their figures into flame-like cloud may perhaps be
founded on the verse, "He maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a
flame of fire" (though erroneously, the right reading of that verse
being, "He maketh the winds His messengers, and the flaming fire His
servant"); but it seems to me to give a greater sense of possible
truth than the entire figures, treading the clouds with naked feet, of
Perugino and his successors.

* * * * *

XXXV.

THE ENTOMBMENT.

I do not consider that in fulfilling the task of interpreter intrusted
to me, with respect to this series of engravings, I may in general
permit myself to unite with it the duty of a critic. But in the
execution of a laborious series of engravings, some must of course be
better, some worse; and it would be unjust, no less to the reader than
to Giotto, if I allowed this plate to pass without some admission of
its inadequacy. It may possibly have been treated with a little less
care than the rest, in the knowledge that the finished plate, already
in the possession of the members of the Arundel Society, superseded
any effort with inferior means; be that as it may, the tenderness of
Giotto's composition is, in the engraving before us, lost to an
unusual degree.

It may be generally observed that the passionateness of the sorrow
both of the Virgin and disciples, is represented by Giotto and all
great followi