ng love. No technical artistic
education is necessary for the appreciation of such pictures. All who
have known a mother's love look and understand, and look again and are
satisfied.

Correggio touches the heart in much the same way; he, too, saw the
world through rose-colored glasses. His interpretation of life is full
of buoyant enjoyment. Beside the tranquil joy of Raphael's ideals, his
figures express a tumultuous gladness, an overflowing gayety. This is
the more curious because of the singular melancholy which is
attributed to him. The outer circumstances of his life moved in a
quiet groove which was almost humdrum. He passed his days in
comparative obscurity at Parma, far from the great art influences of
his time. But isolation seemed the better to develop his rare
individuality. He was the architect of his own fortunes, and wrought
out independently a style peculiar to himself. His most famous Madonna
pictures are large compositions, crowded with figures of extravagant
attitudes and expression. The fame of these more pretentious works
rests not so much upon their inner significance as upon their splendid
technique. They are unsurpassed for masterly handling of color, and
for triumphs of chiaroscuro.

There are better qualities of sentiment in the smaller pictures, where
the mother is alone with her child. It is here that we find something
worthy to compare with Raphael. There are several of these, produced
in rapid succession during the period when the artist was engaged upon
the frescoes of S. Giovanni (Parma), and soon after marriage had
opened his heart to sweet, domestic influences.

The first was the Uffizi picture, so widely known and loved. The
mother has gathered up her mantle so that it covers her head and drops
at one side on a step, forming a soft, blue cushion for the babe. Here
the little darling lies, looking up into his mother's face. Kneeling
on the step below, she bends over him, with her hands playfully
outstretched, in a transport of maternal affection.

Following this came the picture now in the National Gallery, called
the Madonna della Cesta, from the basket that lies on the ground. It
is a domestic scene in the outer air: the mother is dressing her babe,
and smilingly arrests his hand, which, on a sudden impulse, he has
stretched towards some coveted object. The same face is almost exactly
repeated in the Madonna of the Hermitage Gallery (St. Petersburg),
who offers her breast to her b