Where a number of figures are connected together in a circular form in the air, the double illusion of suspension and motion follows naturally, provided their attitudes indicate a circular movement. An excellent example of this is shown in a picture by Botticelli, where Angels dance in the air over the hut of the Nativity.[bp] The finest work of the kind in existence is probably Schwind's Pleiads, in which the stars are represented by a circle of beautiful nude women.[bq] Extraordinary activity is suggested by the perfect arrangement of the limbs and light flowing drapery used. Bouguereau has a work of a similar kind, The Lost Pleiad, but here the dancers are upright, and the circle is only accessory to the title figure.[
] Watteau is fairly successful in giving an illusion of suspension to cupids even with a half circle, though the invention is somewhat formal.[bs]
Some of the devices used to bring about an illusion are most ingenious. Thus in his Bacchus and Ariadne,[bt] Tintoretto actually applies a disability of his art for the purpose. Venus is shown in a horizontal position in the air, placing a crown of stars upon the head of Ariadne. Bacchus is standing by, and the form of the goddess floats just at the back of him, the lower side of her hip being on a level with the top of his head. Seeing that the head is covered with a profusion of vine leaves, it is impossible for the artist to indicate, or the observer to recognize, that the goddess does not actually touch the head of Bacchus, and she apparently balances herself upon his head while crowning Ariadne, the artist having been careful to place the centre of gravity of her figure over the apparent point of contact. A similar kind of illusion is provided by Burne-Jones, whose Angel of the Annunciation is upright in midair near the ground, but her feet seem to find support on the branches of a shrub.[bu] Rossetti, in the same subject, shows the Angel with his feet wrapped in flames, the weight being thus apparently removed. The design seems bizarre, perhaps because of the absence of an expression of surprise which one would expect to see on the countenance of the Virgin at so extraordinary a phenomenon.[73] Schwind also uses a disability of his art for an illusion in his Phantom of the Forest.[bv] She moves near the ground away from the spectator with such rapidity that her robe, a simple rectangular piece of drapery, has opened out wide from the front, and hides her figure from the shoulders down, so that from the point of view of the observer she may, or may not, be touching the ground as she moves.
How slight the apparent support need be, is indicated in Bouguereau's Aurora and Twilight. Each figure is represented by a nude woman holding a light scarf, the first rapidly, and the second slowly, skimming the surface of a stream of water with soft touches of the feet, and yet there is no anomaly that strikes the mind. A still more daring device is used by Battistello, though quite successfully. He places two wingless putti in the air, but one holds up the other, and this action seems to sustain them both.[bw] Another amazing design is from the hand of A. P. Roll, who shows a nude-man in the air clutching another, and apparently struggling to pull him down, yet the action seems perfectly natural.[bx]
FOOTNOTES:
[a] As in Murillo's Ascension of Christ, Madrid Academy.
[] Venice Academy.
[c] See Plate 24.
[d] The Son of Niobe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.[72]
[e] Herculanum et Pompei, vol. iv., by Roux Ainé.