Part 4 (2/2)

(_CARPACCIO_)

JOHN RUSKIN

In the year 1869, just before leaving Venice I had been carefully looking at a picture by Victor Carpaccio, representing the drea princess Carpaccio has taken much pains to explain to us, as far as he can, the kind of life she leads, by coht of dawn, so that you can see everything in it It is lighted by two doubly-arched s, the arches being painted cries, and the capitals of the shafts that bear theilded They are filled at the top with slass; but beneath, are open to the bluesky, with a low lattice across them; and in the one at the back of the room are set two beautiful white Greek vases with a plant in each; one having rich dark and pointed green leaves, the other crimson flowers, but not of any species known to me, each at the end of a branch like a spray of heath

[Illustration: THE DREAM OF ST URSULA

_Carpaccio_]

These flower-pots stand on a shelf which runs all round the rooht of the elbow, and serves to put things on anywhere: beneath it, down to the floor, the walls are covered with green cloth; but above are bare and white The secondis nearly opposite the bed, and in front of it is the princess's reading-table, some two feet and a half square, covered by a red cloth with a white border and dainty fringe; and beside it her seat, not at all like a reading chair in Oxford, but a very sed stool like a music stool, covered with crimson cloth On the table are a book, set up at a slope fittest for reading, and an hour-glass Under the shelf near the table so as to be easily reached by the outstretched arm, is a press full of books The door of this has been left open, and the books, I a been pulled about before the princess went to bed, and one left standing on its side

Opposite this , on the white wall, is a small shrine or picture (I can't see which, for it is in sharp retiring perspective), with a la like one for holding incense

The bed is a broad four-poster, the posts being beautifully wrought golden or gilded rods, variously wreathed and branched, carrying a canopy of warm red The princess's shi+eld is at the head of it, and the feet are raised entirely above the floor of the room, on a dais which projects at the lower end so as to form a seat, on which the child has laid her crown Her little blue slippers lie at the side of the bed,--her white dog beside them, the coverlid is scarlet, the white sheet folded half way back over it; the young girl lies straight, bending neither at waist nor knee, the sheet rising and falling over her in a narrow unbroken wave, like the shape of the coverlid of the last sleep, when the turf scarcely rises She is sohteen years old, her head is turned towards us on the pillow, the cheek resting on her hand, as if she were thinking, yet utterly calm in sleep, and almost colourless Her hair is tied with a narrow riband, and divided into treaths, which encircle her head like a double crown

The white nightgown hides the arm raised on the pillon to the wrist

At the door of the rooilant, takes no notice) He is a very sel, his head just rises a little above the shelf round the rooh as the princess's chin, if she were standing up He has soft grey wings, lustreless; and his dress, of subdued blue, has violet sleeves, open above the elbow, and shohite sleeves below He co shadow froh the door behind, his face perfectly quiet; a palht hand--a scroll in his left

So dreams the princess, with blessed eyes, that need no earthly dawn It is very pretty of Carpaccio to el's dress so particularly, and notice the slashed sleeves; and to drea her the branch of pale But the lovely characteristic of all is the evident delight of her continual life Royal power over herself, and happiness in her flowers, her books, her sleeping and waking, her prayers, her dreams, her earth, her heaven

”How do I know the princess is industrious?”

Partly by the trilass on the table,--by the evident use of all the books she has, (well bound, every one of the's-ears,) but more distinctly from another picture of her, not asleep In that one a prince of England has sent to ask her into part with her, sends for her to his room to ask her what she would do He sits,before hi on with her needlework all the time

A oman, friends, she, no less than a princess; and princessso In like manner, is a picture by a Florentine, whose mind I would fain have you know soirl who is to be the wife of Moses, when he first sees her at the desert well, has fruit in her left hand, but a distaff in her right[2]

”To do good work, whether you live or die,” it is the entrance to all Princedoms; and if not done, the day will come, and that infallibly, when you era_ (Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent, 1872)

FOOTNOTES:

[2] More accurately a rod cloven into three at the top, and so holding the wool The fruit is a bunch of apples; she has golden sandals, and a wreath of myrtle round her hair

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS

(_RUBENS_)

EUGeNE FROMENTIN

Many people say _Antwerp_; but many also say _the country of Rubens_, and this s that constitute the reat personal destiny, a famous school, and ultra-celebrated pictures All this is iination becomes excited rather more than usual when, in the centre of the _Place Vert_, we see the statue of Rubens and, farther on, the old basilica where are preserved the triptychs which, hu, have consecrated it