6. _Cattle Piece._ (Above the picture last described.) I can give no
other name to this picture, whose subject I can neither guess nor
discover, the picture being in the dark, and the guide-books leaving
me in the same position. All I can make out of it is, that there is a
noble landscape with cattle and figures. It seems to me the best
landscape of Tintoret's in Venice, except the "Flight into Egypt;" and
is even still more interesting from its savage character, the
principal trees being pines, something like Titian's in his "St.
Francis receiving the Stigmata," and chestnuts on the slopes and in
the hollows of the hills; the animals also seem first-rate. But it is
too high, too much faded, and too much in the dark to be made out. It
seems never to have been rich in color, rather cool and grey, and very
full of light.
7. _Finding of Body of San Rocco._ (On the left-hand side of the
altar.) An elaborate, but somewhat confused picture, with a flying
angel in a blue drapery; but it seemed to me altogether uninteresting,
or perhaps requiring more study than I was able to give it.
8. _San Rocco in Campo d' Armata._ So this picture is called by the
sacristan. I could see no San Rocco in it; nothing but a wild group of
horses and warriors in the most magnificent confusion of fall and
flight ever painted by man. They seem all dashed different ways as if
by a whirlwind; and a whirlwind there must be, or a thunderbolt,
behind them, for a huge tree is torn up and hurled into the air beyond
the central figure, as if it were a shivered lance. Two of the horses
meet in the midst, as if in a tournament; but in madness of fear, not
in hostility; on the horse to the right is a standard-bearer, who
stoops as from some foe behind him, with the lance laid across his
saddle-bow, level, and the flag stretched out behind him as he flies,
like the sail of a ship drifting from its mast; the central horseman,
who meets the shock, of storm, or enemy, whatever it be, is hurled
backwards from his seat, like a stone from a sling; and this figure
with the shattered tree trunk behind it, is the most noble part of the
picture. There is another grand horse on the right, however, also in
full action. Two gigantic figures on foot, on the left, meant to be
nearer than the others, would, it seems to me, have injured the
picture, had they been clearly visible; but time has reduced them to
perfect subordination.
ROCCO, SCUOLA DI SAN, bases of, I. 291, 431; soffit ornaments of, I.
337. An interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing
into Roman Renaissance. The wreaths of leafage about its shafts are
wonderfully delicate and fine, though misplaced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Stones of Venice, Volume 3 (of 3) — John Shaqi
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