[a] The Works of Anton Raphael Mengs, vol. ii., D'Azara translation.
[NOTE 71. PAGE 258]
Besides assisting in providing an illusion, the title of a picture may lend great additional interest to it. Thus in Millet's The Angelus the associations called up by the title act most powerfully on the mind, and one almost listens for the sound of the bell.[a] A work of a similar character is Bonvin's Ave Maria, where the nuns of a convent are answering the call[]; and Horace Walker has a picture with the same title, in which a boy who is driving cattle, stops in front of a Crucifix by the wayside[c]. An excellent example of this added interest is the title of Turner's great picture of the Temeraire,[d] as to which R. Phillimore writes[e]:
It is not difficult to imagine the picture of an old man-of-war towed by a steam tug up a river. The execution of such a subject may deserve great praise and give great satisfaction to the beholder. But add to the representation the statement that it is "The fighting Temeraire towed to her last berth, " and a series of the most stirring events of our national history fills our imagination.
[a] The Louvre.
[] The Luxembourg.
[c] Corcoran Gallery, Washington.
[d] National Gallery, London.
[e] Preface to translation of Lessing's Laocoon.