and clothed like acolytes; the Madonna was seated
on a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, wreaths of
roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic of Michelangelo to adopt
a conventional motive, and to treat it with brusque originality. In
this picture there are no accessories to the figures, and the
attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in succinct tunics. The
style is rather that of a flat relief in stone than of a painting; and
though we may feel something of Ghirlandajo's influence, the spirit of
Donatello and Luca della Robbia are more apparent. That it was the
work of an inexperienced painter is shown by the failure to indicate
pictorial planes. In spite of the marvellous and intricate beauty of
the line-composition, it lacks that effect of graduated distances
which might perhaps have been secured by execution in bronze or
marble. The types have not been chosen with regard to ideal loveliness
or dignity, but accurately studied from living models. This is very
obvious in the heads of Christ and S. John. The two adolescent genii
on the right hand possess a high degree of natural grace. Yet even
here what strikes one most is the charm of their attitude, the lovely
interlacing of their arms and breasts, the lithe alertness of the one
lad contrasted with the thoughtful leaning languor of his comrade.
Only perhaps in some drawings of combined male figures made by Ingres
for his picture of the Golden Age have lines of equal dignity and
simple beauty been developed. I do not think that this Madonna,
supposing it to be a genuine piece by Michelangelo, belongs to the
period of his first residence in Rome. In spite of its immense
intellectual power, it has an air of immaturity. Probably Heath Wilson
was right in assigning it to the time spent at Florence after Lorenzo
de' Medici's death, when the artist was about twenty years of age.

I may take this occasion for dealing summarily with the Entombment in
the National Gallery. The picture, which is half finished, has no
pedigree. It was bought out of the collection of Cardinal Fesch, and
pronounced to be a Michelangelo by the Munich painter Cornelius. Good
judges have adopted this attribution, and to differ from them requires
some hardihood. Still it is painful to believe that at any period of
his life Michelangelo could have produced a composition so discordant,
so unsatisfactory in some anatomical details, so feelingless and ugly.
It bears indubitable