Identifier: greatpicturesassx00sing (find matches)
Title: Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930, ed. and tr
Subjects: Painting
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead and Company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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sen by Turner for the principal object in his wellknown view of the Grand Canal. The principal faults ofthe building are the meagre windows in the sides of thecupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses underthe form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselvesbeing originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated byLazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none. Thesacristy contains several precious pictures : the three on itsroof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as theyare monstrous; but the small Titian, St. Mark with Sts.Cosmo and Damian, was, when I first saw it, to my judg-ment, by far the first work of Titians in Venice. Ithas since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed tome entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine itcarefully. At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette whichonce decorated the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo,and, at the side of it, one of the most highly finishedTintorets in Venice, namely: The Marriage in Cana
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THE MARRIAGE IN CANA 173 An immense picture, some twenty-five feet long by fifteenhigh, and said by Lazari to be one of the few whichTintoret signed with his name. I am not surprised at hishaving done so in this case. Evidently the work has beena favourite with him, and he has taken as much pains as itwas ever necessary for his colossal strength to take withanything. The subject is not one which admits of muchsingularity or energy in composition. It was always afavourite one with Veronese, because it gave dramaticinterest to figures in gay costumes and of cheerful coun-tenances ; but one is surprised to find Tintoret, whosetone of mind was always grave, and who did not like tomake a picture out of brocades and diadems, throwing hiswhole strength into the conception of a marriage feast;but so it is, and there are assuredly no female heads in anyof his pictures in Venice elaborated so far as those whichhere form the central light. Neither is it often that theworks of this mighty master

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