Phillipps, Evelyn March; Tintoretto: Tintoretto: with 61 plates (London: Methuen & Co., 1911)

described as ‘ Moses on Mount Horeb,’ and this is evidently the
correct interpretation. ‘Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look
upon God.’ The bush is bathed in glory, and Moses is sitting,
turned away, yet listening and shielding his face with his out-
stretched fingers.
It needs an effort, at first discouraging, to grasp the secret of
these stretches of wall, invaded by shadow. Unforeseen changes
have taken place, discords have killed the original tone, have
falsified the keynote and destroyed the harmonies. The colours
have turned, leaving faded splotches instead of the first pure tints,
yet it is wonderful how much is left, and how vivid is the impres-
sion we at length recover.
The first scene upon the right is the ‘Adoration of the
Shepherds.’ This and all the paintings on the same side are in a
deplorably bad light, as the windows above them shine into our eyes.
It is the reason why Tintoretto, who loved light so much, paints in
bold effects, and dashes in with a broad touch which carries. The
scene is a very realistic one; a stable with an upper story for
hay, such as one may see in every country, open rafters,
through which a radiance from the seraphic band streams down
upon Mary’s white headdress, and on the little Child from whom
she lifts the covering. Mary and Joseph and the Child make a
group apart of great tenderness. The colour is a mixture of soft
tints, behind the dark, impressionist rendering of rafters and
grated window. Much of it is painted carelessly, but the greys
are such as Manet tried for, and Tintoretto afterwards became less
sweeping in his execution. Only once besides did he choose this
subject; in the large canvas belonging to Mr. Quincy Shaw at
Brookline, Mass., which its present possessor bought twenty years
ago, in a tattered condition, out of the organ loft of a convent in
V enice.
In the ‘ Baptism,’ a light breaks through the clouds and streams
down upon the kneeling Saviour, who is overshadowed by the
cross carried in the hand of St. John. The clouds roll into
swirling masses, and the light streams up the river, on the bank
of which is gathered a swaying crowd of women, waiting their turn
for immersion. The picture was once bathed in golden radiance,
and, deteriorated as it is, we can still see in it that visionary
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