IV.—­MORNING RAMBLES

A story is told of Poussin, the French painter, that when he was asked why he would not stay in Venice, he replied, ’If I stay here, I shall become a colourist!’ A somewhat similar tale is reported of a fashionable English decorator.  While on a visit to friends in Venice, he avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that the sight of Tintoretto’s pictures would injure his carefully trained taste.  It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true.  Yet there is a certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated whether even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to shed one ray of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto could have so sublimed the prophet of Queen Anne as to make him add dramatic passion to a London drawing-room.  Anyhow, it is exceedingly difficult to escape from colour in the air of Venice, or from Tintoretto in her buildings.  Long, delightful mornings may be spent in the enjoyment of the one and the pursuit of the other by folk who have no classical or pseudo-mediaeval theories to oppress them.

Tintoretto’s house, though changed, can still be visited.  It formed part of the Fondamenta dei Mori, so called from having been the quarter assigned to Moorish traders in Venice.  A spirited carving of a turbaned Moor leading a camel charged with merchandise, remains above the waterline of a neighbouring building; and all about the crumbling walls sprout flowering weeds—­samphire and snapdragon and the spiked campanula, which shoots a spire of sea-blue stars from chinks of Istrian stone.

The house stands opposite the Church of Santa Maria dell’ Orto, where Tintoretto was buried, and where four of his chief masterpieces are to be seen.  This church, swept and garnished, is a triumph of modern Italian restoration.  They have contrived to make it as commonplace as human ingenuity could manage.  Yet no malice of ignorant industry can obscure the treasures it contains—­the pictures of Cima, Gian Bellini, Palma, and the four Tintorettos, which form its crowning glory.  Here the master may be studied in four of his chief moods:  as the painter of tragic passion and movement, in the huge ‘Last Judgment;’ as the painter of impossibilities, in the ‘Vision of Moses upon Sinai;’ as the painter of purity and tranquil pathos, in the ’Miracle of S. Agnes;’ as the painter of Biblical history brought home to daily life, in the ‘Presentation of the Virgin.’  Without leaving the Madonna dell’ Orto, a student can explore his genius in all its depth and breadth; comprehend the enthusiasm he excites in those who seek, as the essentials of art, imaginative boldness and sincerity; understand what is meant by adversaries who maintain that, after all, Tintoretto was but an inspired Gustave Dore.  Between that quiet canvas of the ‘Presentation,’ so modest in its cool greys and subdued gold, and the