The 'Landscape with Figures,' 12, and 'Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba,' 14, are two of Claude's best examples. Turner was a daring man to risk the test of Time with the four pictures; at present his two look the best, but in another hundred years, while Claude's will still appear almost as fresh, Turner's will have vanished, as all his pictures must, and leave only a few stains and cracks behind. So much for the modern masters when they try to compete with their manufactured tube colours against the wise men of old, who ground their own paints, studied the chemistry of colours, and knew how to prepare their own canvases. A century after this, readers of old books will wonder what John Ruskin meant by praising Turner so extravagantly, when they go down to the vaults where the Trustees are vainly trying to keep the remains of those fugitive masterpieces, by secluding them from the light, while Claude Lorraine will still hang on in his old places, calm, fresh, sunny and metallic. So much for atmosphere against artifice. [Illustration: HARMONY] CHAPTER XI _THE SACRED AND THE COMIC SIDES OF ART_ PART I.--THE SACRED SIDE OF ART [Illustration: Y]OU have doubtless all seen a photograph of that fine head of our Saviour by Gabriel Max, illustrative of the legend of St Veronica. The story tells us that Veronica wiped the face of Christ with her napkin as He passed along cross-laden, blood-stained, mud-stained, and sweating to Calvary, and in token of her kindness the Lord left the impression of that world-wasted face upon the napkin. It is a beautiful legend, and Gabriel Max has illustrated it as, without exception, no man before him ever did. The dimness and uncertainty have aided the painter's conception. It is not so much a face as the shadow of a face which is presented to us--the shadow of a lamb-like face, full of infinite meekness and patience, dirty and wounded, with masses of hair draggled and stuck with the blood which has trickled down the brow and cheeks to that indefinite beard. This, to me, constitutes the great charm of this masterly work; that the painter has left to the spectator the task of embodying this divine shade. The trick about the eyes is the weak and common portion of an otherwise matchless work of subtlety. It may please the people, and make a multitude of inartistic minds marvel at the cleverness of the illusion, but it is only a small trick at the best, and unworthy the mind which could conceive and execute all the rest.