ave seemed more accurate by putting heavier
masts and yards in her; but he painted her as he saw her. This is very
important, as it gets rid of the difficulty which I myself have felt and
expressed, that it was very improbable that she was sold all standing in
sea-going trim, as I imagined Turner intended us to believe she was
sold, and answers also the criticism just mentioned as to the
disproportion between the weight of the masts and yards and the size of
the hull." Part of the _Temeraire_, Mr. White tells me, is still in
existence. Messrs. Castle, the shipbuilders of Millbank, have the two
figures of Atlas which supported the sterngallery.

SPRING

(_BOTTICELLI_)

MARCEL REYMOND

Of all the ancient Italian painters, Botticelli has, for several years,
been the master most in fashion. Why? The first reason should be sought
in that reaction against the pseudo-classic style of the Renaissance
which has seemed to be the dominant tendency of art in the Nineteenth
Century. But this explanation does not suffice to tell us for what
reasons the favour of the public has specially fallen upon Botticelli.
Why select Botticelli rather than any other artist of the Fourteenth or
Fifteenth Century? Why Botticelli and not Giotto, or Fra Angelico, or,
to cite none but his contemporaries, why not Signorelli, or Ghirlandajo?
It is because Fra Angelico's art is too religious for our century and
Giotto's art too philosophical, or, at least, it is because our century
no longer thinks of demanding from its artists, as in the time of Giotto
and Fra Angelico, the expression of the moral questions with which it is
occupied. And if we seem to-day somewhat indifferent to the art of
Ghirlandajo, or Signorelli, it is because their thought is too grave and
because we desire before all else that art shall bring smiles into our
laborious life; we demand that it shall give repose to our tired brains
by charming us with the vision of all terrestrial beauties, without
exacting any labour or any effort from our minds.

In this quest of beauty, our curious minds, which know so many things
and which have been able to compare the works of the most diverse
civilizations, are perpetually seeking novelty, eager for rare forms,
and inimical to everything banal and to everything that ordinary life
brings before our eyes. And in our _fin de siecle_ we have been so much
the more prone to subtle pursuits because for some time our French art
has seemed