owards
her bosom. As for the perpetual introduction of the emblem of the
Padre Eterno, seen above the sky, under the usual half-figure of a
kingly ancient man, surrounded by a glory of cherubim, and sending
forth upon a beam of light the immaculate Dove, there is nothing to
be said but the usual excuse for the mediaeval artists, that certainly
there was no _conscious_ irreverence. The old painters, great as they
were in art, lived in ignorant but zealous times--in times when
faith was so fixed, so much a part of the life and soul, that it was
not easily shocked or shaken; as it was not founded in knowledge or
reason, so nothing that startled the reason could impair it. Religion,
which now speaks to us through words, then spoke to the people through
visible forms universally accepted; and, in the fine arts, we accept
such forms according to the feeling which _then_ existed in men's
minds, and which, in its sincerity, demands our respect, though now we
might not, could not, tolerate the repetition. We must also remember
that it was not in the ages of ignorance and faith that we find
the grossest materialism in art. It was in the learned, half-pagan
sixteenth and the polished seventeenth century, that this materialized
theology became most offensive. Of all the artists who have sinned
in the Annunciation--and they are many--Nicolo Poussin is perhaps
the worst. Yet he was a good, a pious man, as well as a learned and
accomplished painter. All through the history of the art, the French
show themselves as the most signal violators of good taste, and what
they have invented a word for--_bienseance_. They are worse than the
old Germans; worse than the modern Spaniards--and that is saying much.

In Raphael's Annunciation, Mary is seated in a reclining attitude,
leaning against the side of her couch, and holding a book. The angel,
whose attitude expresses a graceful _empressement_, kneels at some
distance, holding the lily.

* * * * *

Michael Angelo gives us a most majestic Virgin standing on the steps
of a prie-Dieu, and turning with hands upraised towards the angel, who
appears to have entered by the open door; his figure is most clumsy
and material, and his attitude unmeaning and ungraceful. It is, I
think, the only instance in which Michael Angelo has given wings to
an angelic being: for here they could not be dispensed with.

In a beautiful Annunciation by Johan Van Eyck (Munich Gal., Cabi