Venuses. One, facing the door, reclines on a red velvet mantle, an ample
vigorous torso as powerful as one of Rubens' Bacchantes, but firmer--an
energetic and vulgar figure, a simple, strong unintellectual courtezan.
She lies extended on her back, caressing a little cupid naked like
herself, with the vacant seriousness and passivity of soul of an animal
in repose and expectant. The other, called "Venus with the Dog," is a
patrician's mistress, couched, adorned and ready. We recognize a palace
of the day, the alcove fitted up and colors tastefully and magnificently
contrasted for the pleasure of the eye; in the background are servants
arranging clothes; through a window a section of blue landscape is
visible; the master is about to arrive.

Nowadays we devour pleasure secretly like stolen fruit; then it was
served up on golden salvers and people sat down to it at a table. It is
because pleasure was not vile or bestial. This woman holding a bouquet
in her hand in this grand columnar saloon has not the vapid smile or the
wanton and malicious air of an adventuress about to commit a bad action.
The calm of evening enters the palace through noble architectural
openings. Under the pale green of the curtains lies the figure on a
white sheet, slightly flushed with the regular pulsation of life, and
developing the harmony of her undulating forms. The head is small and
placid; the soul does not rise above the corporal instincts; hence she
can resign herself to them without shame, while the poesy of art,
luxury and security on all sides comes to decorate and embellish them.
She is a courtezan but also a lady; in those days the former did not
efface the latter; one was as much a title as the other and, probably,
in demeanor, affection and intellect one was as good as the other. The
celebrated Imperia had her tomb in the church of San Gregorio, at Rome,
with this inscription: "Imperia, a Roman courtezan worthy of so great a
name, furnished an example to men of perfect beauty, lived twenty-six
years and twelve days, and died in 1511, August 25." ...

On passing from the Italian into the Flemish galleries one is completely
turned around; here are paintings executed for merchants content to
remain quietly at home eating good dinners and speculating over the
profits of their business; moreover in rainy and muddy countries dress
has to be cared for, and by the women more than the men. The mind feels
itself contracted on entering the circ