s here, in the manner of Pier dei Franceschi. His line is firm
and clear, simple and structural, of unerring sweep and accuracy, as we
see in his numerous _predella_ paintings; but even more remarkable is
the wonderful plastic quality of his modelling. By this he makes us
realise better than any one before him the tenseness of sinew, the
resistance of hard muscle, and the supple elasticity of flesh, giving a
solidity and weight to his forms that make them impressive as grand
sculptures.

As an illustrator Signorelli is most unequal; brilliant and dramatic
when the subject appealed to his taste, as in the Orvieto frescoes,
often weak, as in his treatment of sacred themes. He was essentially a
religious painter, but in the widest meaning of the word, and he does
not seem to have felt the dignity and significance of many of the scenes
in the life of Christ. When he has to paint Him bound to the pillar or
nailed to the Cross, submissive to scourging and insult, his interest
seems to wander from what should be the central figure, and fixes itself
on some two or three of the minor actors, to whom he gives the
importance he should have concentrated on the Christ. The painter _con
amore_ of arrogant strength, he seems to have little in common with
meekness and humility that bows the head to scourging and martyrdom.
Thus in nearly all his "Crucifixions" the central figure is ignoble in
type and expression, and in the "Flagellations" of the Brera and of
Morra, is entirely without dignity, even ignominious. This is curious
when we consider that even more than of arrogant strength Signorelli was
the painter of stately and noble beauty.

Again it seems as if he cared only to represent figures of powerful
maturity, for there is a complete lack of sympathy in his painting of
children. With one or two exceptions, his child Christs are half-animal
little beings, more like tiny satyrs than human children, although not
without a certain pathos in their very ugliness. In a picture of as
great beauty and tender feeling as the "Holy Family," of the Rospigliosi
Collection, for example, the child is more animal than human. Unlike
Donatello, who delights in childhood, and sees in it the bubbling source
of future strength, Signorelli gives his babies the overweighted,
unelastic sadness of old age. In composing his Holy Families, therefore,
his attention is centred on the Virgin, the strong woman he loved to
paint, but the child he seems to feel