A beautiful and characteristic work.[129] "At first glance you may think the picture a mere piece of affectation. Well--yes, Botticelli is affected in the way that all men of his century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about"--just as he likes also dancing motion and waved drapery (see 1034) (_Mornings in Florence_, iii. 59). The picture is characteristic also of two faculties which Botticelli acquired from his early training as a goldsmith: first, his use of gold as a means of enriching the light (as here in the Madonna's hair); and, secondly, the "incomparable invention and delicacy" with which he treated all accessory details and ornaments (as here in the scarves and dresses). But chiefly is the picture characteristic of his "sentiment of ineffable melancholy, of which it is hard to penetrate the sense, and impossible to escape the spell." It may help one in understanding the spirit of such pictures to remember that in Botticelli there met in perfect poise the tenderness of Christian feeling with the grace of the classical Renaissance. He was "a Greek reanimate. The first Greeks were distinguished from the barbarians by their simple humanity; the second Greeks--these Florentine Greeks reanimate--are human more strongly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of Christ, 'Loose him, and let him go.' And there is upon them at once the joy of resurrection and the solemnity of the grave"[130] (_Ariadne Florentina_, § 161; and _Fors Clavigera_, 1872, xxii.). 276. TWO APOSTLES. School of _Giotto_. _See under 568._ _See also_ (p. xix) Here's Giotto with his Saints a-praising God, That set us praising. BROWNING. These solemn heads seem to breathe the very spirit of the master; but the history of the painting forbids the supposition that we have here the handiwork, or even the direct influence of Giotto. It is a fragment from one of the wall-paintings in the chapel of St. John the Baptist in the church of S. Maria del Carmine at Florence. The frescoes were not executed till 1350, some years after the death of Giotto. The subject of the composition to which our fragment belongs was the burial of the Baptist. The history of these frescoes is typical of that of many a vicissitude, and recalls the idea suggested in one of Browning's _Dramatic Lyrics_, in which the soul of the painter watches the gradual decay and dispersal of his life's work:-- Wherever a fresco peals and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains: One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, Each tinge, not wholly escape the plaster, --A lion who dies of an ass's kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.