ns,
meet, extremes though they are, on the same ground when they approach
this sacred subject. The pictures reproduced here, it may safely be
said, are all celebrated, and yet they represent but a small part of
the pictures of the same subject which are known to be by men of
importance, and of which every museum in the world has a goodly
number. If we add to these the pictures in private collections, and
then take into account the tens of thousands of pictures of the same
subject which, everywhere throughout the world, especially in Europe,
are to be found in the churches, it is safe to say that no other
subject has so often given its inspiration to the painter.

[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. TITIAN (ITALIAN: BORN 1477; DIED
1576).]

Nor in any other case has a subject given such variety of inspiration.
The elements are few and simple, and though occasionally there are
accessory figures, the concentration of interest, the reason for the
existence of the picture, is centred on the Mother and Child. A survey
of these pages will suffice to show that of these two principal
elements a great variety of pictorial effect, of expression, of
sentiment, of composition of line, and of light and shade, is
possible. We can go back to the splendid Byzantine churches, with
their wealth of mosaic, their subdued splendor of dulled gold covering
arch and pillar as a background for the glow of color with which the
artists of Constantine worked,--in a rigid convention as to form which
gives their figures an impressive air, but which is ill-suited to the
representation of the divine Mother and Child. Hence, in this, the
earliest manifestation of Christian art, it is the remembrance of the
majesty of a prophet, of the benign dignity of the mature Christ, that
I we carry away with us. Giotto, however, had no sooner freed himself
from the hampering conditions under which his predecessors worked,
than we begin to feel the human element enter into art. Down through
the centuries until to-day, the long procession of artists comes to
us: those of Italy first of all, birthplace of modern art, land where
time has touched everything with so reverent a hand that all has been
rendered beautiful.

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD. MURILLO (SPANISH: BORN 1618?; DIED
1682).

This legion of valiant painters enlisted in the service of "that most
noble Lady and her Son, our Lord and Seigneur," have names which sound
sweet to the ear, as their work is