tance, about a dozen are
hardly worth calling figures, and the rest are so sketched and
flourished in that one can hardly tell which is which. There is one
point about it very interesting to a landscape painter: the river is
seen far into the distance, with a piece of copse bordering it; the
sky beyond is dark, but the water nevertheless receives a brilliant
reflection from some unseen rent in the clouds, so brilliant, that
when I was first at Venice, not being accustomed to Tintoret's slight
execution, or to see pictures so much injured, I took this piece of
water for a piece of sky. The effect as Tintoret has arranged it, is
indeed somewhat unnatural, but it is valuable as showing his
recognition of a principle unknown to half the historical painters of
the present day,--that the reflection seen in the water is totally
different from the object seen above it, and that it is very possible
to have a bright light in reflection where there appears nothing but
darkness to be reflected. The clouds in the sky itself are round,
heavy, and lightless, and in a great degree spoil what would otherwise
be a fine landscape distance. Behind the rocks on the right, a single
head is seen, with a collar on the shoulders: it seems to be intended
for a portrait of some person connected with the picture.

12. _Resurrection._ Another of the "effect of light" pictures, and not
a very striking one, the best part of it being the two distant figures
of the Maries seen in the dawn of the morning. The conception of the
Resurrection itself is characteristic of the worst points of Tintoret.
His impetuosity is here in the wrong place; Christ bursts out of the
rock like a thunderbolt, and the angels themselves seem likely to be
crushed under the rent stones of the tomb. Had the figure of Christ
been sublime, this conception might have been accepted; but, on the
contrary, it is weak, mean, and painful; and the whole picture is
languidly or roughly painted, except only the fig-tree at the top of
the rock, which, by a curious caprice, is not only drawn in the
painter's best manner, but has golden ribs to all its leaves, making
it look like one of the beautiful crossed or chequered patterns, of
which he is so fond in his dresses; the leaves themselves being a dark
olive brown.

13. _The Agony in the Garden._ I cannot at present understand the
ord