DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0141
THE UPPER HALL
towards it, all lines converge in its direction. The dog bounding
past is introduced to show that animals were included in the
deliverance, ‘ And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he
smote the rock twice; and the water came out abundantly, and
the congregation drank, and their beasts also.’ The conception of
the Father is not a specially happy one, but this part of the
picture is so indeterminate that we concentrate our attention
on the figure of Moses, full of elasticity and instinct with
purpose, surrounded with eager beings, who strain wildly to
reach the coveted stream. We again see that passion for
movement already indicated by his earlier works, the ‘Miracle
of the Slave’ and the ‘Last Judgment.’ Something of the
terribilita of Michelangelo comes into his brush ; it follows the
rapid impulse of his mind; he paints with an elan which tells
us that knowledge has become second nature and is used
instinctively.
Tintoretto was, above all men, impatient of hackneyed and
traditional forms ; he must have a reading of his own. ‘ And the
Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people. ’
This was what he read, and in the great central piece, instead of
Michelangelo’s huge boa-constrictors, he makes them ‘little flying
and fluttering monsters, like lampreys with wings.’ They are
serpents drawn from the little sea-horses so common on the
Adriatic coast, but enlarged and made fierce and horrible, as they
forage over a heap of prostrate men and women, scattered over the
mountain side. This is a much more terrific conception, says
Ruskin, than that of boa-constrictors, ‘ which our instinct tells us
do not come in armies.’ ‘ But we feel that it is not impossible
that there should come up a swarm of these small winged-reptiles
... it is their veritableness which makes them awful. They have
triangular heads with sharp beaks or muzzles . . . and small
wings spotted with orange and black, and round glaring eyes . . .
with an intense delight in biting expressed in them. These
monsters are fluttering and writhing about everywhere ; fixing on
whatever they come near with their sharp ravenous heads; and
they are coiling about on the ground, and all the shadows and
thickets are full of them, so that there is no escape anywhere ’
The dead he in every attitude of an agonized end, with swollen,
77
towards it, all lines converge in its direction. The dog bounding
past is introduced to show that animals were included in the
deliverance, ‘ And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he
smote the rock twice; and the water came out abundantly, and
the congregation drank, and their beasts also.’ The conception of
the Father is not a specially happy one, but this part of the
picture is so indeterminate that we concentrate our attention
on the figure of Moses, full of elasticity and instinct with
purpose, surrounded with eager beings, who strain wildly to
reach the coveted stream. We again see that passion for
movement already indicated by his earlier works, the ‘Miracle
of the Slave’ and the ‘Last Judgment.’ Something of the
terribilita of Michelangelo comes into his brush ; it follows the
rapid impulse of his mind; he paints with an elan which tells
us that knowledge has become second nature and is used
instinctively.
Tintoretto was, above all men, impatient of hackneyed and
traditional forms ; he must have a reading of his own. ‘ And the
Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people. ’
This was what he read, and in the great central piece, instead of
Michelangelo’s huge boa-constrictors, he makes them ‘little flying
and fluttering monsters, like lampreys with wings.’ They are
serpents drawn from the little sea-horses so common on the
Adriatic coast, but enlarged and made fierce and horrible, as they
forage over a heap of prostrate men and women, scattered over the
mountain side. This is a much more terrific conception, says
Ruskin, than that of boa-constrictors, ‘ which our instinct tells us
do not come in armies.’ ‘ But we feel that it is not impossible
that there should come up a swarm of these small winged-reptiles
... it is their veritableness which makes them awful. They have
triangular heads with sharp beaks or muzzles . . . and small
wings spotted with orange and black, and round glaring eyes . . .
with an intense delight in biting expressed in them. These
monsters are fluttering and writhing about everywhere ; fixing on
whatever they come near with their sharp ravenous heads; and
they are coiling about on the ground, and all the shadows and
thickets are full of them, so that there is no escape anywhere ’
The dead he in every attitude of an agonized end, with swollen,
77