It is interesting to compare the various representations of the Dead Christ, or Pietà, which may be seen in the National Gallery. The subject, it may first be noted, was treated in very different ways. "Convention did not early harden down into fixity of composition or crystallise into rigid forms. A certain plasticity of imagination was permitted from the beginning; a certain indefiniteness of nomenclature and scope remained habitual to the end" (Grant Allen: see also Mrs. Jameson's _History of our Lord_, ii. 226). Sometimes the subject of the "Pietà" is the Mater Dolorosa, weeping over the body of the dead Saviour, and attended by saints (266, 1427) or angels (180). At other times the dead Saviour is supported by angels only (22, 219, 602), or, as in this picture, by saints. Sometimes the dead figure is represented lying at full length (22, 180); at other times it is a half-figure showing above a tomb or ledge (219, 266, 602, 590, 1427). Still more interesting is a comparison between these pictures for the illustration it gives of the different sentiment of different painters or schools. The picture before us is hard and dry; that of Crivelli (602) is full of tenderness. With some painters it is the physical horror, the bodily distortion that appeals to them in this subject. With others it is the pity and the sorrow (as, pre-eminently, in Francia's, 180). 591. THE RAPE OF HELEN. _Benozzo Gozzoli_ (Florentine: 1420-1498). _See_ 283. _See also_ (p. xix) The earliest picture in the Gallery which was painted for domestic pleasure, not religious service. One of the earliest also in which a classical subject is attempted. It probably formed the end of a coffer or _cassone_,[152] such as were often given for wedding presents, and was no doubt a commission to the artist for that purpose. Hence the choice of subject (which has been variously given as the Rape of Helen and the Rape of the Venetian Brides), and the (surely intentional) comic extravagance of the drawing: the bridegroom takes giant's strides in lover's eagerness, and the ships scud along with love to speed them. The ludicrous unreality of the rocks and trees, contrasted with the beautifully painted flowers of the foreground, is very characteristic of the art of the time (_cf._ 283 and 582). Rocks, trees, and water are all purely "conventional" still; and "the most satisfactory work of the period is that which most resembles missal painting, that is to say, which is fullest of beautiful flowers and animals scattered among the landscape, in the old independent way, like the birds upon a screen. The landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli is exquisitely rich in incident of this kind" (Edinburgh _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, ch. iii.). 592. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. _Filippino Lippi_[153] (Florentine: 1457-1504). _See_ 293. _See also_ (p. xix)