o. In his latest rendering,
in S. Giorgio Maggiore, he touches his highest point in symbolical
treatment. Some people are only able to see a theatrical, artificial
spirit in this picture, but at least, when we consider what deep
meditation Tintoretto had bestowed on his subjects, we may believe that
he himself was sincere and that he let himself go over what commended
itself as an entirely new rendering. "The Light shined in the Darkness,
and the Darkness comprehended it not." The supernatural is entering on
every side, but the feast goes on; the serving men and maids busy
themselves with the dishes; the disciples are inquiring, but not
agitated; none see that throng of heavenly visitants, pouring in through
the blue moonlight, called to their Master's side by the supreme
significance of His words. The painter has taken full advantage of the
opportunity of combining the light of the cresset lamp, pouring out
smoky clouds, with the struggling moonlight and the unearthly radiance,
in divers, yet mingling streams which fight against the surrounding
gloom. In the scene in the Scuola di S. Rocco the betrayal is the
dominating incident, and in San Stefano all is peace, and the Saviour
is alone with the faithful disciples.

[Illustration: _Tintoretto._
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
_Ducal Palace, Venice._
(_Photo, Anderson._)]

Though several of the large compositions ascribed to Tintoretto in
the Ducal Palace are only partly by him, or entirely by followers and
imitators, its halls are still a storehouse of his genius. There is much
that is fine about the great state pieces. In the "Marriage of St.
Catherine," the saint, in silken gown and long transparent veil, is an
exquisite figure. Tintoretto bathes all his pageantry in golden light
and air, and yet we feel that these huge official subjects, with the
prosaic old Doges introduced in incongruous company, neither stimulated
his imagination nor satisfied his taste. It is on the smaller canvases
that he finds inspiration. He never painted anything more lovely, more
perfect in design, or more gay and tender in idea, than the cycle in
the Ante-Collegio. The glowing light and exquisitely graded shadows upon
ivory limbs have a sensuous perfection and a refined, unselfconscious
joy such as is felt in hardly any other work, except the painter's own
"Milky Way" in the National Gallery. In all these four pictures the
feeling for design, a b