on--or shall I call it a
restoration--of Corot's "St. Sebastian." In speaking of this as one of
the noteworthy paintings in the Walters gallery, Mr. Larned had said
that it was a landscape in which the figures were quite subordinate and
seemed merely intended to illustrate the deeper meaning of the painter
in his rendition of nature. According to the critic's detailed
description, it was a forest scene. "Great trees rise on the right to
the top of the canvas. On the left are also some smaller trees, whose
upper branches reach across and make, with the trees on the right, a
sort of arch through which is seen a wonderful stretch of sky. A rocky
path leads away from the foreground beneath the overhanging trees,
sloping upward until it reaches the crest of a hill beneath the sky.
Just at this point the figures of two retreating horsemen are seen.
These are the men who have been trying to kill St. Sebastian, and have
left him, as they thought, dead in the depth of the forest. In the
immediate foreground lies the figure of the half dead saint, whose
wounds are being dressed by two women. Hovering immediately above this
group, far up among the tree branches, two lovely little angels are
seen holding the palm and crown of the martyr. All the figures are
better painted than is usual with Corot, and the angels are very light
and delicate, both in color and form." Mr. Earned quoted from a
celebrated French authority that this was "the most sincerely religious
picture of the nineteenth century." I leave it to the reader if Mr.
Larned's description conveys any such impression. To Field's mind, it
only suggested the grotesque, and his reproduction was a _chef
d'oeuvre_, as he was wont to say. He followed the general outline of
the scene as described above, but made the landscape subordinate to the
figures. The retreating ruffians bore an unmistakable resemblance to
outlawed American cowboys. The saint showed carmine ink traces of
having been most shamefully abused. But the chief interest in the
picture was divided between a lunch-basket in the foreground, from
which protruded a bottle of "St. Jacob's" oil, and a brace of vividly
pink cupids hopping about in the tree-tops, rejoicing over the magical
effect of the saintly patent medicine. His treatment of this picture
proved, if it proved anything, that Corot had gone dangerously near the
line where the sublime suggests the ridiculous.

In Fortuny's "Don Quixote" Field found a subject