s ultramarine, owing of
course to this mineral material resisting time and change more
perfectly than the pigments with which it is associated. The whole
scheme leaves a grave harmonious impression on the mind, thoroughly in
keeping with the sublimity of the thoughts expressed. No words can
describe the beauty of the flesh-painting, especially in the figures
of the Genii, or the technical delicacy with which the modelling of
limbs, the modulation from one tone to another, have been carried from
silvery transparent shades up to the strongest accents.

VI

Mr. Ruskin has said, and very justly said, that "the highest art can
do no more than rightly represent the human form." This is what the
Italians of the Renaissance meant when, through the mouths of
Ghiberti, Buonarroti, and Cellini, they proclaimed that the perfect
drawing of a fine nude, "un bel corpo ignudo," was the final test of
mastery in plastic art. Mr. Ruskin develops his text in sentences
which have peculiar value from his lips. "This is the simple test,
then, of a perfect school--that it has represented the human form so
that it is impossible to conceive of its being better done. And that,
I repeat, has been accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in
Florence. And so narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive
schools, that it cannot be said of either of them that they
represented the entire human form. The Greeks perfectly drew and
perfectly moulded the body and limbs, but there is, so far as I am
aware, no instance of their representing the face as well as any great
Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face
insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having
perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it
became his pride to despise and his safety to mortify."

We need not pause to consider whether the Italian's inferiority to the
Greek's in the plastic modelling of human bodies was due to the
artist's own religious sentiment. That seems a far-fetched explanation
for the shortcomings of men so frankly realistic and so scientifically
earnest as the masters of the Cinque Cento were. Michelangelo's
magnificent cartoon of Leda and the Swan, if it falls short of some
similar subject in some _gabinetto segreto_ of antique fresco, does
assuredly not do so because the draughtsman's hand faltered in pious
dread or pious aspiration. Nevertheless, Ruskin is right in telling us
that no Itali