representing figures and objects as they
appear to the eye, viewed in positions varying from the perpendicular.
The meaning of the term is exemplified in the celebrated Ascension, in
the Pieta de Tarchini, at Naples, by Luca Giordano, in which the body of
Christ is so much foreshortened, that the toes appear to touch the
knees, and the knees the chin. This art is one of the most difficult in
painting, and though absurdly claimed as a modern invention, was well
known to the ancients. Pliny speaks expressly of its having been
practised by Parrhasius and Pausias. Many writers erroneously attribute
the invention to Correggio; but Lanzi says, "it was discovered and
enlarged by Melozzo da Forli, improved by Andrea Mantegna and his
school, and perfected by Correggio and others." About the year 1472,
Melozzo painted his famous fresco of the Ascension in the great chapel
of the Santi Apostoli at Rome. Vasari says of this work, "the figure of
Christ is so admirably foreshortened, as to appear to pierce the vault;
and in the same manner, the Angels are seen sweeping through the fields
of air in different directions." This work was so highly esteemed that
when the chapel was rebuilt in 1711, the painting was cut out of the
ceiling with the greatest care, and placed in the Quirinal palace, where
it is still preserved.

METHOD OF TRANSFERRING PAINTINGS FROM WALLS AND PANELS TO CANVASS.

According to Lanzi, Antonio Contri discovered a valuable process, by
means of which he was enabled to transfer fresco paintings from walls to
canvass, without the least injury to the work, and thus preserved many
valuable paintings by the great masters, which obtained him wide
celebrity and profitable employment. For this purpose, he spread upon a
piece of canvass of the size of the painting to be transferred, a
composition of glue or bitumen, and placed it upon the picture. When
this was sufficiently dry, he beat the wall carefully with a mallet, cut
the plaster around it, and applied to the canvass a wooden frame, well
propped, to sustain it, and then, after a few days, cautiously removed
the canvass, which brought the painting with it; and having extended it
upon a smooth table he applied to the back of it another canvass
prepared with a more adhesive composition than the former. After a few
days, he examined the two pieces of canvass, detached the first by means
of warm water, which left the whole painting upon the second as it was
originally u