FIG. 14. Giotto. The Flight into Egypt.—_Arena, Padua._ ] Next the eye will realize splendid people gravely occupied with solemn acts. There is the strangest blend of passion and decorum. See the eager old man who clutches his wife before a massive city gate while she caresses him tenderly, Figure 13_a_, note the firm gentleness of the bearded priest who handles a screaming baby before the altar, mark the sense of strain and hurry where a mother and child mounted on an ass, Figure 14, are pushed and dragged along by an old man and attendants. Or again, what sinister power in the scene where three Jewish magistrates press money upon a haggard, bearded, nervous man. You do not need the bat-like demon prompting him to know that it is the arch-traitor Judas, Figure 15. Then there is a strange, serene, processional composition, with the Virgin moving homeward among her friends to a solemn music, Figure 16. It has a rhythm like the frieze of the Parthenon. Perhaps your eye will fix longest on the scene where about the pale body of the dead Christ women wail with outstretched hands, or tend the broken body, while bearded men, accustomed to the hardness of life, stand in mute sympathy with folded hands, Figure 17. It is what the Gospel ought to look like. How Giotto shows every feeling, pushing its expression just to the verge, and there stopping, so that idyl and tragedy, devotion and wrath, treachery and fealty, fear and courage, each keeps its proper and distinguishing aspect, while all are invested in a common dignity and nobility. You will perhaps never have seen an art at once so varied and moving, and nevertheless so monumental, and you may well be curious as to the method. [Illustration: FIG. 15. Giotto. Judas betraying Christ.—_Arena, Padua._ ]