rist, on the walls of the upper hall;
the scenes from the Old Testament, on the ceiling of the upper hall; and
the last scenes in the life of Christ, in the Refectory. In short, the
Scuola di S. Rocco is Tintoretto's Sistine Chapel.

We enter to an "Annunciation"; and if we had not perceived before, we at
once perceive here, in this building, Tintoretto's innovating gift of
realism. He brought dailiness into art. Tremendous as was his method, he
never forgot the little things. His domestic details leaven the whole.

This "Annunciation" is the most dramatic version that exists. The Virgin
has been sitting quietly sewing in her little room, poorly enough
furnished, with a broken chair by the bed, when suddenly this celestial
irruption--this urgent flying angel attended by a horde of cherubim or
cupids and heralded by the Holy Spirit. At the first glance you think
that the angel has burst through the wall, but that is not so. But as it
is, even without that violence, how utterly different from the demure
treatment of the Tuscans! To think of Fra Angelico and Tintoretto
together is like placing a violet beside a tiger lily.

A little touch in the picture should be noticed: a carpenter at work
outside. Very characteristic of Tintoretto.

Next--but here let me remind or inform the reader that the Venetian
Index at the end of the later editions of _The Stones of Venice_
contains an analysis of these works, by Ruskin, which is as
characteristic of that writer as the pictures are of their artist. In
particular is Ruskin delighted by "The Annunciation," by "The Murder of
the Innocents," and, upstairs, by the ceiling paintings and the
Refectory series.

Next is "The Adoration of the Magi," with all the ingredients that one
can ask, except possibly any spiritual rapture; and then the flight into
a country less like the Egypt to which the little family were bound, or
the Palestine from which they were driven, than one can imagine, but a
dashing work. Then "The Slaughter of the Innocents," a confused scene of
fine and daring drawing, in which, owing to gloom and grime, no
innocents can be discerned. Then a slender nocturnal pastoral which is
even more difficult to see, representing Mary Magdalen in a rocky
landscape, and opposite it a similar work representing S. Mary of Egypt,
which one knows to be austere and beautiful but again cannot see.

Since the story of S. Mary of Egypt is little known, I may perhaps be
permitted to te