k show
us how rapidly he could paint, for the artist died when he was only
forty-two years old.

[Illustration: FIG. 8. CHARLES I AND HIS HORSE. VAN DYCK. LOUVRE,
PARIS]

THE GALE

WINSLOW HOMER (1836-1910)

Winslow Homer lived in Maine, where he heard the roar of mighty waters
beating the rocks all day and all night. Some days the ocean grew so
angry because the winds whirled its waters about in such a cruel
manner that it would fling itself upon the sands and rocks as though
to tear everything to pieces. The waves would raise up like furious
horses champing their bits and foaming at the mouth. Somehow these
angry waves could never go beyond a certain point, and the mother
carrying her baby along the coast knows just the point at which the
waves must stop. Let us clap our hands and shout with joy that old
ocean cannot hurt that mother and her baby. Fill your lungs full of
that glorious breeze whipping their hair and clothes. Open your eyes
wide like the baby and let the salt air polish them until they sparkle
like diamonds as the baby's do.

Winslow Homer loved old ocean, and so do we! Let us love his pictures
of old ocean for he has taught us that that mighty power is under a
greater Power.

[Illustration: FIG. 9. THE GALE. HOMER. Courtesy of Worcester Art
Museum, Massachusetts]

MADONNA DEL GRAN' DUCA

RAPHAEL SANZIO (1483-1520)

I want you to learn everything you can about Raphael. He was so kind
and gentle and beautiful that everybody loved him. People said that
when he walked on the streets of Rome scores of young men went with
him until one would think him a prince. The pope gave him a large
order to decorate the Vatican, the pope's home. Every artist was
willing to help him because he was always ready to do anything he
could to help his brother artists.

Raphael only lived to be thirty-seven. When he died all Italy mourned
his death, and his funeral was one of the largest of any artist of his
time.

When Raphael was only twenty-one he painted the "Madonna del Gran'
Duca." He had gone to Florence for the first time. We do not know
where the picture was for a hundred years after it was painted; then
the painter Carlo Dolci owned it. Again another hundred years went by,
and we find it in possession of a poor widow. She sold it to a
picture-dealer for about twenty dollars. It then went into the hands
of the grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand III, for the big sum of eight
hundred dolla