2. Siege of Zara; the first picture on the right on entering the Sala del Scrutinio. It is a mere battle piece, in which the figures, like the arrows, are put in by the score. There are high merits in the thing, and so much invention that it is possible Tintoret may have made the sketch for it; but, if executed by him at all, he has done it merely in the temper in which a sign-painter meets the wishes of an ambitious landlord. He seems to have been ordered to represent all the events of the battle at once; and to have felt that, provided he gave men, arrows, and ships enough, his employers would be perfectly satisfied. The picture is a vast one, some thirty feet by fifteen.
Various other pictures will be pointed out by the custode, in these two rooms, as worthy of attention, but they are only historically, not artistically, interesting. The works of Paul Veronese on the ceiling have been repainted; and the rest of the pictures on the walls are by second-rate men. The traveller must, once for all, be warned against mistaking the works of Domenico Robusti (Domenico Tintoretto), a very miserable painter, for those of his illustrious father, Jacopo.
3. The Doge Grimani kneeling before Faith, by Titian; in the Sala delle quattro Porte. To be observed with care, as one of the most striking examples of Titian’s want of feeling and coarseness of conception. (See above, Vol. [I. p. 12].) As a work of mere art, it is, however, of great value. The traveller who has been accustomed to deride Turner’s indistinctness of touch, ought to examine carefully the mode of painting the Venice in the distance at the bottom of this picture.
4. Frescoes on the Roof of the Sala delle quattro Porte, by Tintoret. Once magnificent beyond description, now mere wrecks (the plaster crumbling away in large flakes), but yet deserving of the most earnest study.
5. Christ taken down from the Cross, by Tintoret; at the upper end of the Sala dei Pregadi. One of the most interesting mythic pictures of Venice, two doges being represented beside the body of Christ, and a most noble painting; executed, however, for distant effect, and seen best from the end of the room.
6. Venice, Queen of the Sea, by Tintoret. Central compartment of the ceiling, in the Sala dei Pregadi. Notable for the sweep of its vast green surges, and for the daring character of its entire conception, though it is wild and careless, and in many respects unworthy of the master. Note the way in which he has used the fantastic forms of the sea weeds, with respect to what was above stated (III. 158), as to his love of the grotesque.
7. The Doge Loredano in Prayer to the Virgin, by Tintoret; in the same room. Sickly and pale in color, yet a grand work; to be studied, however, more for the sake of seeing what a great man does “to order,” when he is wearied of what is required from him, than for its own merit.
8. St. George and the Princess. There are, besides the “Paradise,” only six pictures in the Ducal Palace, as far as I know, which Tintoret painted carefully, and those are all exceedingly fine: the most finished of these are in the Anti-Collegio; but those that are most majestic and characteristic of the master are two oblong ones, made to fill the panels of the walls in the Anti-Chiesetta; these two, each, I suppose, about eight feet by six, are in his most quiet and noble manner. There is excessively little color in them, their prevalent tone being a greyish brown opposed with grey, black, and a very warm russet. They are thinly painted, perfect in tone, and quite untouched. The first of them is “St. George and the Dragon,” the subject being treated in a new and curious way. The principal figure is the princess, who sits astride on the dragon’s neck, holding him by a bridle of silken riband; St. George stands above and behind her, holding his hands over her head as if to bless her, or to keep the dragon quiet by heavenly power; and a monk stands by on the right, looking gravely on. There is no expression or life in the dragon, though the white flashes in its eye are very ghastly: but the whole thing is entirely typical; and the princess is not so much represented riding on the dragon, as supposed to be placed by St. George in an attitude of perfect victory over her chief enemy. She has a full rich dress of dull red, but her figure is somewhat ungraceful. St. George is in grey armor and grey drapery, and has a beautiful face; his figure entirely dark against the distant sky. There is a study for this picture in the Manfrini Palace.
9. St. Andrew and St. Jerome. This, the companion picture, has even less color than its opposite. It is nearly all brown and grey; the fig-leaves and olive-leaves brown, the faces brown, the dresses brown, and St. Andrew holding a great brown cross. There is nothing that can be called color, except the grey of the sky, which approaches in some places a little to blue, and a single piece of dirty brick-red in St. Jerome’s dress; and yet Tintoret’s greatness hardly ever shows more than in the management of such sober tints. I would rather have these two small brown pictures, and two others in the Academy perfectly brown also in their general tone—the “Cain and Abel” and the “Adam and Eve,”—than all the other small pictures in Venice put together, which he painted in bright colors, for altar pieces; but I never saw two pictures which so nearly approached grisailles as these, and yet were delicious pieces of color. I do not know if I am right in calling one of the saints St. Andrew. He stands holding a great upright wooden cross against the sky. St. Jerome reclines at his feet, against a rock, over which some glorious fig leaves and olive branches are shooting; every line of them studied with the most exquisite care, and yet cast with perfect freedom.
10. Bacchus and Ariadne. The most beautiful of the four careful pictures by Tintoret, which occupy the angles of the Anti-Collegio. Once one of the noblest pictures in the world, but now miserably faded, the sun being allowed to fall on it all day long. The design of the forms of the leafage round the head of the Bacchus, and the floating grace of the female figure above, will, however, always give interest to this picture, unless it be repainted.