ns with his influence, though Gian Bellini was his brother-in-law
and pupil, and though his genius, in grasp of matter and in management of
composition, soared above his neighbours. Lionardo da Vinci at Milan was
perfecting his problems of psychology in painting, offering to the world
solutions of the greatest difficulties in the delineation of the spirit by
expression. Yet not a trace of Lionardo's subtle play of light and shadow
upon thoughtful features can be discerned in the work of the Bellini. For
them the mysteries of the inner and the outer world had no attraction. The
externals of a full and vivid existence fascinated their imagination.
Their poetry and their piety were alike simple and objective. How to
depict the world as it is seen--a miracle of varying lights and melting
hues, a pageant substantial to the touch and concrete to the eyes, a
combination of forms defined by colours more than outlines--was their
task. They did not reach their end by anatomy, analysis, and
reconstruction. They undertook to paint just what they felt and saw.

Very instructive are the wall-pictures of this period, painted not in
fresco but on canvas by Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, for the decoration
of the Scuole of S. Ursula and S. Croce.[274] Not only do these bring
before us the life of Venice in its manifold reality, but they illustrate
the tendency of the Venetian masters to express the actual world, rather
than to formulate an ideal of the fancy or to search the secrets of the
soul. This realism, if the name can be applied to pictures so poetical as
those of Carpaccio, is not, like the Florentine realism, hard and
scientific. A natural feeling for grace and a sense of romance inspire the
artist, and breathe from every figure that he paints. The type of beauty
produced is charming by its negligence and _naivete_; it is not thought
out with pains or toilsomely elaborated.[275]

Among the loveliest motives used in the altar-pieces of this period might
be mentioned the boy-angels playing flutes and mandolines beneath Madonna
on the steps of her throne. There are usually three of them, seated, or
sometimes standing. They hold their instruments of music as though they
had just ceased from singing, and were ready to recommence at the pleasure
of their mistress. Meanwhile there is a silence in the celestial company,
through which the still voice of the praying heart is heard, a silence
corresponding to the hushed mood of the worship