rioso_ Tintoretto, leaving
ostentatious, barren displays of technical power, has once again had the
gentleness and patience to make himself thoroughly agreeable. Ariadne, a
beautiful and noble figure, is seated undraped on a rock, and Bacchus,
profusely crowned with ivy, advances from the sea, and offers her the
nuptial ring; whilst above, Venus, her back towards you, lying
horizontally in the pale blue air, as if the blue air were her natural
couch, spreads or rather kindles, a chaplet or circlet of stars round
Ariadne's head. Here, those who luxuriate in what is typical, may tell
us, and probably not without truth, that Tintoretto wished to convey a
graceful hint of Venice crowned by beauty and blessed with joy and
abundance. Bacchus arising from the sea well signifies these latter
gifts, and the watery path by which they come to her; and the lonely
island nymph to whom he presents the wedding-ring, may be intended to
refer to the situation and original forlornness of Venice herself, when
she sat in solitude amidst the sandy isles of the lagune, aloof from her
parental shores, ravaged by the Hun or the Lombard. The pale yellow
sunshine on these nude figures and their light transparent shadows, and
the mild temperate blue of the calm sea and air, almost completing the
most simple arrangement of the colouring of the picture, are still
beautiful, and no doubt were far more so before its lamentable fading,
occasioned, it seems, by too much exposure to light; you feel quite out
of doors, all on the airy cliffs, as you look on it, and almost taste
the very freshness of the sea-breeze.

_The Art Journal_ (London, 1857).

LA CRUCHE CASSEE

(_GREUZE_)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

One might say of Greuze, as of Hogarth, that the moral scenes which he
represents appear to have been posed for and acted by excellent actors
rather than copied directly from nature. This is the truth, but seen,
however, through an interpretation and under a travesty of rusticity.
All is reasoned out, full of purpose, and leading to an end. There is in
every stroke what the _litterateurs_ call ideas when they talk about
painting. Thus Diderot has celebrated Greuze in the most lyric strain.
Greuze, however, is not a mediocre artist: he invented a _genre_ unknown
before his time, and he possesses veritable qualities of a painter. He
has colour, he has touch, and his heads, modelled by square plans and,
so to speak, by facets, have relief and li