"The painting before us has been objected to because it seems broken up in bits. Precisely the same objection would hold, and in very nearly the same degree, against the best works of the Venetians. All faithful colourists' work, in figure-painting, has a look of sharp separation between part and part.... Although, however, in common with all other works of its class, it is marked by these sharp divisions, there is no confusion in its arrangement. The principal figure is nobly principal, not by extraordinary light, but by its own pure whiteness; and both the Master and the young Giotto attract full regard by distinction of form and face. The features of the boy are carefully studied, and are indeed what, from the existing portraits of him, we know those of Giotto must have been in his youth. The head of the young girl who wears the garland of blue flowers is also very sweetly conceived. "Such are the chief merits of the picture. Its defect is that the equal care given to the whole of it is not yet _care enough_. I am aware of no instance of a young painter, who was to be really great, who did not in his youth paint with intense effort and delicacy of finish. The handling here is much too broad; and the faces are, in many instances, out of drawing, and very opaque and feeble in colour. Nor have they in general the dignity of the countenance of the thirteenth century. The Dante especially is ill-conceived--far too haughty, and in no wise noble or thoughtful. It seems to me probable that Mr. Leighton has greatness in him, but there is no absolute proof of it in this picture; and if he does not, in succeeding years, paint far better, he will soon lose the power of painting so well." To Mr. Ruskin's account, which is sufficient to enable one to realize the picture in some detail, we may add further the criticism of the "Athenæum" of May 12th, 1855, which is interesting as showing how the work affected a contemporary critic of another order. It speaks of Mr. Leighton as "a young artist who, we believe, has studied in Italy," and goes on to say: "There can be no question that the picture is one of great power, although the composition is quaint even to sectarianism; and though the touch, in parts broad and masterly, is in the lesser parts of the roughest character." The last clause of the sentence bears out, it may be perceived, a significant indictment in Mr. Ruskin's deliverance, which lays stress on a defect that the artist, in his maturer brush-work, does not show.