It is strange that such a demoralising time should have seen the rise of a great master; but it certainly saw him in Canaletto. That artist differed from nearly all the Venetian painters in that he had complete mastery of technique. His work is just as fine technically as that of Velasquez or that of Rembrandt. It shows marvellous dexterity and power. He understood his materials better than any other Venetian painter--better even than Giorgione. Guardi and Tiepolo followed Canaletto. In Tiepolo's work especially you realise the character of these eighteenth-century people. At that time Venice was sliding downhill rapidly. Her people were aping dignity. They dressed extravagantly, not so much for the love of colour and splendour as for swagger. They were degenerating rapidly. Here and there lesser masters appeared; but Venetian art became poorer and poorer, until it reached the condition of the present day, when in Venice there is no art at all. The kind of work which the people appreciate sickens and saddens you--those sunlit photographs glazed with blue to counterfeit moonlight, and tricky, vicious water-colours,--brutal pictures with metallic reflections and cobalt skies,--all wonderfully alike, all with the same orange sail, and all equally untrue. [Illustration: HUMBLE QUARTERS] Year by year painters continue to paint Venice without the public showing signs of weariness. Perhaps the failure of the artists to reproduce the undying charm of that dazzling jewel of cities is both the excuse and the reason for the pertinacity of the tribe. Womanlike, she eludes them; manlike, they pursue. Few have seen the real Venice, the Venice of Ruskin and Turner and Whistler. Venice is not for the cold-blooded spectator, for the amateur or the art dabbler: she is for the enthusiastic colourist and painter, the man who sees, and does not merely look. Sir Edward Burne-Jones was wont to declare that to paint Venice as she should be painted one must needs live for three thousand years: the first thousand should be devoted to experiments in various media; the second to producing works and destroying them; the third to completing slowly the labour of centuries. He would never have dreamed of spending a painting holiday beyond Italy--that is, unless he had been permitted to live for over five thousand years; and even then, it was his firm opinion, no man could paint St. Mark's, which was unpaintable--mere pigment could not suggest it. [Illustration: RIO DI SAN MARINA] [Illustration: A SQUERO OR BOAT-BUILDING YARD] STREETS, SHOPS, AND COURTYARDS