and although
there is never the slightest expression of real sea character, of
motion, gloom, or spray, there is more real interest of marine detail
and incident than in many later compositions.

2. _Early Venetian Period._ A great deal of tolerably careful
boat-drawing occurs in the pictures of Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini,
deserving separate mention among the marine schools, in confirmation of
what has been stated above, that the drawing of boats is more difficult
than that of the human form. For, long after all the perspectives and
fore-shortenings of the human body were completely understood, as well
as those of architecture, it remained utterly beyond the power of the
artists of the time to draw a boat with even tolerable truth. Boats are
always tilted up on end, or too long, or too short, or too high in the
water. Generally they appear to be regarded with no interest whatever,
and are painted merely where they are matters of necessity. This is
perfectly natural: we pronounce that there is romance in the Venetian
conveyance by oars, merely because we ourselves are in the habit of
being dragged by horses. A Venetian, on the other hand, sees vulgarity
in a gondola, and thinks the only true romance is in a hackney coach.
And thus, it was no more likely that a painter in the days of Venetian
power should pay much attention to the shipping in the Grand Canal than
that an English artist should at present concentrate the brightest rays
of his genius on a cab-stand.

3. _Late Venetian Period._ Deserving mention only for its notably
negative character. None of the great Venetian painters, Tintoret,
Titian, Veronese, Bellini, Giorgione, Bonifazio, ever introduce a ship
if they can help it. They delight in ponderous architecture, in grass,
flowers, blue mountains, skies, clouds, and gay dresses; nothing comes
amiss to them but ships and the sea. When they are forced to introduce
these, they represent merely a dark-green plain, with reddish galleys
spotted about it here and there, looking much like small models of
shipping pinned on a green board. In their marine battles, there is
seldom anything discernible except long rows of scarlet oars, and men in
armor falling helplessly through them.

4. _Late Roman Period._ That is to say, the time of the beginning of the
Renaissance landscape by the Caracci, Claude, and Salvator. First, in
their landscapes, shipping begins to assume something like independent
character, and to be