woman of a
majestic character, and the man with his mouth open, wears a cap, or
turban; opposite to him in the sheet, is a female in profile, "wearing a
hood of massive drapery." And, when once your attention is directed to
this point, you will perhaps be surprised to find how many of Michael
Angelo's figures, intended to be sublime, have their heads bandaged. If
you have been a student of Michael Angelo chiefly, you may easily have
vitiated your taste to the extent of thinking that this is a dignified
costume; but if you study Greek work, instead, you will find that
nothing is more important in the system of it than a finished
disposition of the hair; and as soon as you acquaint yourself with the
execution of carved marbles generally, you will perceive these massy
fillets to be merely a cheap means of getting over a difficulty too
great for Michael Angelo's patience, and too exigent for his invention.
They are not sublime arrangements, but economies of labor, and reliefs
from the necessity of design; and if you had proposed to the sculptor of
the Venus of Melos, or of the Jupiter of Olympia, to bind the ambrosial
locks up in towels, you would most likely have been instantly bound,
yourself; and sent to the nearest temple of AEsculapius.

236. I need not, surely, tell you,--I need only remind,--how in all
these points, the Venetians and Correggio reverse Michael Angelo's evil,
and vanquish him in good; how they refuse caricature, rejoice in beauty,
and thirst for opportunity of toil. The waves of hair in a single figure
of Tintoret's (the Mary Magdalen of the Paradise) contain more
intellectual design in themselves alone than all the folds of unseemly
linen in the Sistine chapel put together.

In the fourth and last place, as Tintoret does not sacrifice, except as
he is forced by the exigencies of display, the face for the body, so
also he does not sacrifice happiness for pain. The chief reason why we
all know the "Last Judgment" of Michael Angelo, and not the "Paradise"
of Tintoret, is the same love of sensation which makes us read the
_Inferno_ of Dante, and not his _Paradise_; and the choice, believe me,
is our fault, not his; some farther evil influence is due to the fact
that Michael Angelo has invested all his figures with picturesque and
palpable elements of effect, while Tintoret has only made them lovely in
themselves and has been content that they should deserve, not demand,
your attention.

237. You are ac