just possible that the covering of these walls may have been
an after-thought, when he had got tired of his work. They are also,
for the most part, illustrative of a principle of which I am more and
more convinced every day, that historical and figure pieces ought not
to be made vehicles for effects of light. The light which is fit for a
historical picture is that tempered semi-sunshine of which, in
general, the works of Titian are the best examples, and of which the
picture we have just passed, "The Visitation," is a perfect example
from the hand of one greater than Titian; so also the three
"Crucifixions" of San Rocco, San Cassano, and St. John and Paul; the
"Adoration of the Magi" here; and, in general, the finest works of
the master; but Tintoret was not a man to work in any formal or
systematic manner; and, exactly like Turner, we find him recording
every effect which Nature herself displays. Still he seems to regard
the pictures which deviate from the great general principle of
colorists rather as "tours de force" than as sources of pleasure; and
I do not think there is any instance of his having worked out one of
these tricky pictures with thorough affection, except only in the case
of the "Marriage of Cana." By tricky pictures, I mean those which
display light entering in different directions, and attract the eye to
the effects rather than to the figure which displays them. Of this
treatment, we have already had a marvellous instance in the
candle-light picture of the "Last Supper" in San Giorgio Maggiore.
This "Adoration of the Shepherds" has probably been nearly as
wonderful when first painted: the Madonna is seated on a kind of
hammock floor made of rope netting, covered with straw; it divides the
picture into two stories, of which the uppermost contains the Virgin,
with two women who are adoring Christ, and shows light entering from
above through the loose timbers of the roof of the stable, as well as
through the bars of a square window; the lower division shows this
light falling behind the netting upon the stable floor, occupied by a
cock and a cow, and against this light are relieved the figures of the
shepherds, for the most part in demi-tint, but with flakes of more
vigorous sunshine falling here and there upon them from above. The
optical illusion has originally been as perfect as one of Hunt's best