to facts, as well as in those interludes of sensuous sweetness that now and again, as, for instance in the art of Murillo, burst out so strangely like an exotic bloom, they reflect the temper of Spain. It is contended sometimes that these pictures in Seville are wanting in dignity, wanting in beauty. But are we not too apt to confine beauty to certain forms of accepted expression? Surely any art that has life; has dignity, has beauty; and no one can deny that life was the inspiration of the Andalusian painters. We must remember these things if we would understand the pictures in Seville. But first we find ourselves carried away from the reality and darkness of life back to a happy childhood of art, as we look at the three fourteenth-century frescoes of the Virgin--the “Antigua,” in the chapel named after it in the Cathedral, “Nuestra Señora del Corral” in San Ildefonso, and “Señora Maria de Rocamador” in San Lorenzo--an art when the painter, less conscious of life and of himself, was content to paint beautiful patterns. In these three pictures--all that are left to us--we see the last of Byzantine art in Spain. The figures, with long oval faces all of one type, are placed stiffly against a background of Gothic gold. Look at “Señora Maria de Rocamador,” as she sits holding the Child upon her knees; while two little angels kneel, one upon the left, one on the right. She wears a blue robe, partly covered with a mantle of deep purple, very beautiful with ornaments of gold and bordered with gold braid. A bent coronet around her head stands out against the glowing halo; the background is all of gold woven into a delicate pattern. It is a picture of pure convention in which is no effort to carry the mind beyond what is actually seen; it makes its appeal just as so much decoration. This fresco, as well as the “Antigua” and “Nuestra Señora del Corral,” have been much repainted--the ill-fortune of so many early Spanish works.