ic figures, that the eye at once adapts itself to
the scale, and you feel as if you too partook of the strength and health
of heroes.

=XVII. Value of Minor Episodes in Art.=--That feeling for reality which
made the great painters look upon a picture as the representation of a
cubic content of atmosphere enveloping all the objects depicted, made
them also consider the fact that the given quantity of atmosphere is
sure to contain other objects than those the artist wants for his
purpose. He is free to leave them out, of course, but in so far as he
does, so far is he from producing an effect of reality. The eye does not
see everything, but all the eye would naturally see along with the
principal objects, must be painted, or the picture will not look true
to life. This incorporation of small episodes running parallel with the
subject rather than forming part of it, is one of the chief
characteristics of modern as distinguished from ancient art. It is this
which makes the Elizabethan drama so different from the Greek. It is
this again which already separates the works of Duccio and Giotto from
the plastic arts of Antiquity. Painting lends itself willingly to the
consideration of minor episodes, and for that reason is almost as well
fitted to be in touch with modern life as the novel itself. Such a
treatment saves a picture from looking prepared and cold, just as light
and atmosphere save it from rigidity and crudeness.

No better illustration of this can be found among Italian masters than
Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" in the Scuola di San Rocco. The scene is a
vast one, and although Christ is on the Cross, life does not stop. To
most of the people gathered there, what takes place is no more than a
common execution. Many of them are attending to it as to a tedious duty.
Others work away at some menial task more or less connected with the
Crucifixion, as unconcerned as cobblers humming over their last. Most of
the people in the huge canvas are represented, as no doubt they were in
life, without much personal feeling about Christ. His own friends are
painted with all their grief and despair, but the others are allowed to
feel as they please. The painter does not try to give them the proper
emotions. If one of the great novelists of to-day, if Tolstoi, for
instance, were to describe the Crucifixion, his account would read as if
it were a description of Tintoretto's picture. But Tintoretto's fairness
went even further than lett