n. I have never seen a picture of the
Baptism, by any painter whatever, which was not below the average
power of the painter; and in this conception of Giotto's, the humility
of St. John is entirely unexpressed, and the gesture of Christ has
hardly any meaning: it neither is in harmony with the words, "Suffer
it to be so now," which must have been uttered before the moment of
actual baptism, nor does it in the slightest degree indicate the sense
in the Redeemer of now entering upon the great work of His ministry.
In the earlier representations of the subject, the humility of St.
John is never lost sight of; there will be seen, for instance, an
effort at expressing it by the slightly stooping attitude and bent
knee, even in the very rude design given in outline on the opposite
page. I have thought it worth while to set before the reader in this
outline one example of the sort of traditional representations which
were current throughout Christendom before Giotto arose. This instance
is taken from a large choir-book, probably of French, certainly of
Northern execution, towards the close of the thirteenth century;[22]
and it is a very fair average example of the manner of design in the
illuminated work of the period. The introduction of the scroll, with
the legend, "This is My beloved Son," is both more true to the
scriptural words, "Lo, a voice from heaven," and more reverent, than
Giotto's introduction of the visible figure, as a type of the First
Person of the Trinity. The boldness with which this type is introduced
increases precisely as the religious sentiment of art decreases; in
the fifteenth century it becomes utterly revolting.

[Footnote 22: The exact date, 1290, is given in the title-page of the
volume.]

I have given this woodcut for another reason also: to explain more
clearly the mode in which Giotto deduced the strange form which he has
given to the stream of the Jordan. In the earlier Northern works it is
merely a green wave, rising to the Saviour's waist, as seen in the
woodcut. Giotto, for the sake of getting standing-ground for his
figures, gives _shores_ to this wave, retaining its swelling form in
the centre,--a very painful and unsuccessful attempt at reconciling
typical drawing with laws of perspective. Or perhaps it is less to be
regarded as an effort at progress, than as an awkward combination of
the Eastern and Western types of the Jordan. In the difference between
these types there is matter of