cited as examples of fine execution and mistaken or defective
character. No sentiment, no action, connects the personages either
with each other, or with the spectator.

5. Michael Angelo. The composition, in the Florence Gallery, styled
a Holy Family, appears to me a signal example of all that should be
avoided. It is, as a conception, neither religious nor domestic; in
execution and character exaggerated and offensive, and in colour hard
and dry.

Another, a bas-relief, in which the Child is shrinking from a
bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms: the mistake
in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the
Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans
pensively on a book lying open on his mother's knee, while she looks
out on the spectator, is more properly a _Mater Amabilis_.

There is an extraordinary fresco still preserved in the Casa
Buonarotti at Florence, where it was painted on the wall by Michael
Angelo, and styled a Holy Family, though the exact meaning of the
subject has been often disputed. It appears to me, however, very
clear, and one never before or since attempted by any other artist.
(This fresco is engraved in the _Etruria Pittrice_.) Mary is seated
in the centre; her Child is reclining on the ground between her knees;
and the little St. John holding his cross looks on him steadfastly.
A man coming forward seems to ask of Mary, "Whose son is this?" She
most expressively puts aside Joseph with her hand, and looks up, as
if answering, "Not the son of an earthly, but of a heavenly Father!"
There are five other figures standing behind, and the whole group is
most significant.

6. Albert Durer. The Holy Family seated under a tree; the Infant is
about to spring from the knee of his mother into the outstretched arms
of St. Anna; Joseph is seen behind with his hat in his hand; and to
the left sits the aged Joachim contemplating the group.

7. Mary appears to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends
from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe,
holds up to him a flower--other flowers in his lap:--a beautiful old
German print.

8. Giulio Romano. (_La Madonna del Bacino_.) (Dresden Gal.) The Child
stands in a basin, and the young St. John pours water upon him from
a vase, while Mary washes him. St. Elizabeth stands by, holding
a napkin; St. Joseph, behind, is looking on. Notwithstanding the
homeliness of the action, there is he