above, Venus, her back towards you, lying horizontally in the pale blue air, as if the blue air were her natural couch, spreads or rather kindles, a chaplet or circlet of stars round Ariadne’s head.  Here, those who luxuriate in what is typical, may tell us, and probably not without truth, that Tintoretto wished to convey a graceful hint of Venice crowned by beauty and blessed with joy and abundance.  Bacchus arising from the sea well signifies these latter gifts, and the watery path by which they come to her; and the lonely island nymph to whom he presents the wedding-ring, may be intended to refer to the situation and original forlornness of Venice herself, when she sat in solitude amidst the sandy isles of the lagune, aloof from her parental shores, ravaged by the Hun or the Lombard.  The pale yellow sunshine on these nude figures and their light transparent shadows, and the mild temperate blue of the calm sea and air, almost completing the most simple arrangement of the colouring of the picture, are still beautiful, and no doubt were far more so before its lamentable fading, occasioned, it seems, by too much exposure to light; you feel quite out of doors, all on the airy cliffs, as you look on it, and almost taste the very freshness of the sea-breeze.

    The Art Journal (London, 1857).

LA CRUCHE CASSEE

(GREUZE)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

One might say of Greuze, as of Hogarth, that the moral scenes which he represents appear to have been posed for and acted by excellent actors rather than copied directly from nature.  This is the truth, but seen, however, through an interpretation and under a travesty of rusticity.  All is reasoned out, full of purpose, and leading to an end.  There is in every stroke what the litterateurs call ideas when they talk about painting.  Thus Diderot has celebrated Greuze in the most lyric strain.  Greuze, however, is not a mediocre artist:  he invented a genre unknown before his time, and he possesses veritable qualities of a painter.  He has colour, he has touch, and his heads, modelled by square plans and, so to speak, by facets, have relief and life.  His draperies, or rather his rumpled linen, torn and treated grossly in a systematic fashion to give full value to the delicacy of the flesh, reveal in their very negligence an easy brush. La Malediction Paternelle and Le Fils Maudit are homilies that are well painted and of a practical moral, but we prefer L’Accordee du Village, on account of the adorable head of the fiancee; it is impossible to find anything younger, fresher, more innocent and more coquettishly virginal, if these two words may be connected.  Greuze, and this is the cause of the renown which he enjoys now after the eclipse of his glory caused by the intervention of David and his school, has a very