some pictures.

CHAPTER XVI

THE ACCADEMIA. I: TITIAN, TINTORETTO, AND PAUL VERONESE

The important rooms--Venetian art in London--The ceiling of the thousand
wings--Some early painters--Titian's "Assumption"--Tintoretto's
"Miracle of S. Mark"--A triumph of novelty--The Campanile
miracle--Altar-pieces--Paul Veronese--Leonardo drawings--Indifferent
works--Jesus in the house of Levi--A painter on his trial--Other
Tintorettos--Another miracle of S. Mark--Titian's last painting.

The Accademia, which is to Venice what the National Gallery is to
London, the Louvre to Paris, and the Uffizi to Florence, is, I may say,
at once, as a whole a disappointment; and my advice to visitors is to
disregard much of it absolutely.

The reasons why Rooms II, IV, IX, X, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX
alone are important are two. One is that so wide a gulf is fixed between
the best Venetian painters--Bellini, Titian, Carpaccio, Giorgione (but
he is not represented here), Palma, Tintoretto, Veronese, and the next
best; and the other, that Venetian painting of the second order is
rarely interesting. In the Tuscan school an effort to do something
authentic or arresting persists even to the fifth and sixth rank of
painter; but not so here.

Were it not for the Accademia's Tintorettos, Carpaccios and Bellinis,
our own Venetian collection in Trafalgar Square would be much more
interesting; and even as it is we have in "The Origin of the Milky Way"
a Tintoretto more fascinating than any here; in "Bacchus and Ariadne" a
more brilliant Titian than any here; some Bellinis, such as "The Agony
in the Garden," the portrait of Loredano, and "The Death of S. Peter
Martyr," that challenge his best here; two Giorgiones and several
pictures notably of his school that cannot be matched here; the finest
Catena that exists; a more charming Basaiti than any here; a better
Antonello da Messina; and, according to some judges, the best Paul
Veronese in the world: "The House of Darius"; while when it comes to
Carlo Crivelli, he does not exist here at all.

But it has to be remembered that one does not go to Venice to see
pictures. One goes to see Venice: that is to say, an unbelievable and
wonderful city of spires and palaces, whose streets are water and whose
sunsets are liquid gold. Pictures, as we use the word, meaning paintings
in frames on the wall, as in the National Gallery or the Louvre, are not
among its first treasures. But in painting as