Sala VII is Venetian again, the best picture being Romanino's "Deposition," No. 737. An unknown treatment of Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, No. 152, is quaint and interesting. Mary is very comely, with long fair hair. Martha, not sufficiently resentful, lays the table.
In Room VIII we again go north and again are among pictures that must be cleaned if we are to see them.
And then we come to Room IX and some masterpieces. The largest picture here is Paul Veronese's famous work, "Jesus in the House of Levi," of which I give a reproduction opposite page 176. Veronese is not a great favourite of mine; but there is a blandness and aristocratic ease and mastery here that are irresistible. As an illustration of scripture it is of course absurd; but in Venice (whose Doges, as we have seen, had so little humour that they could commission pictures in which they were represented on intimate terms with the Holy Family) one is accustomed to that. As a fine massive arrangement of men, architecture, and colour, it is superb.
It was for painting this picture as a sacred subject—or rather for subordinating sacred history to splendid mundane effects—that the artist was summoned before the Holy Office in the chapel of S. Theodore on July 8, 1573. At the end of Ruskin's brief Guide to the Principal Pictures in the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice, a translation of the examination is given. Reading it, one feels that Veronese did not come out of it too well. Whistler would have done better. I quote a little.
Question. Do you know the reason why you have been summoned?
Answer. No, my lord.
Q. Can you imagine it?
A. I can imagine it.
Q. Tell us what you imagine.