cartoon for the figure of
Christ, which would account for its extraordinary beauty. Sebastian
embarked on a close intimacy with the Florentine painter, and,
according to Vasari, the great canvas of the "Raising of Lazarus," in
the National Gallery, was executed under the orders and in part from
the designs of Michelangelo. This colossal work was looked on as one
of the most important creations of the sixteenth century, but there is
little to make us wish to change it for the altarpiece of S. Crisostomo.
The desire for scientific drawing and the search after composition have
produced a laboured effect; the female figures are cast in a masculine
mould, and it lacks both the severe beauty of the Tuscan School and
the emotional charm of Sebastian's native style. We cannot, however,
avoid conjecturing if in the figure of Lazarus himself we have not a
conception of the great Florentine. It is so easy in pose, so splendid
in its, perhaps excessive, length of limb, that our thoughts turn
involuntarily to the _Ignudi_ in the Sixtine Chapel. The picture has
been dulled and injured by repainting, but the distance still has the
sombre depth of the Venetians. All through Sebastian's career he seeks
for form and composition, but, great painter as he undoubtedly is, he
is great because he possesses that inborn feeling for harmony of colour.
This is what we value in him, and he excels in so far as he follows his
Venetian instincts.

The death of Raphael improved Sebastian's position in Rome, and
though Leo X. never liked or employed him, he did not lack commissions.
The "Fornarina" in the Uffizi, with the laurel-wreathed head and
leopard-skin mantle, still reveals him as the Venetian, and it is
curious that any critic should ever have assigned its rich, voluptuous
tone and its coarse type to Raphael. Sebastian obtained commissions for
decorating S. Maria del Popolo in oils and S. Pietro in Montorio in
fresco, but in the latter medium, though he is ambitious of acquiring
the force of Michelangelo, he lacks the Tuscan ease of hand. Colour,
for which he possessed so true an aptitude, the deep, fused colour of
Giorgione, is set aside by him; his tints become strong and crude, his
surfaces grow hard and polished, and he thinks, above all, of bold
action, of drawing and modelling. The Venetian genius for portraiture
remains, and he has left such fine examples as the "Andrea Doria" of the
Vatican, or the "Portrait of a Man in the Pitti," a ma