ROCCO, SCUOLA DI SAN 405

First group. On the walls of the room on the ground floor.

1. Annunciation.5. The Magdalen.

2. Adoration of Magi.6. St. Mary of Egypt.

3. Flight into Egypt.7. Circumcision.

4. Massacre of Innocents.8. Assumption of Virgin.

At the turn of the stairs leading to the upper room:

9. Visitation.

1. The Annunciation. This, which first strikes the eye, is a very just representative of the whole group, the execution being carried to the utmost limits of boldness consistent with completion. It is a well-known picture, and need not therefore be specially described, but one or two points in it require notice.¹ The face of the Virgin is very disagreeable to the spectator from below, giving the idea of a woman about thirty, who had never been handsome. If the face is untouched, it is the only instance I have ever seen of Tintoret’s failing in an intended effect, for, when seen near, the face is comely and youthful, and expresses only surprise, instead of the pain and fear of which it bears the aspect in the distance. I could not get near enough to see whether it had been retouched. It looks like Tintoret’s work, though rather hard; but, as there are unquestionable marks of the retouching of this picture, it is possible that some slight restoration of lines supposed to be faded, entirely alters the distant expression of the face. One of the evident pieces of repainting is the scarlet of the Madonna’s lap, which is heavy and lifeless. A far more injurious one is the strip of sky seen through the doorway by which the angel enters, which has originally been of the deep golden colour of the distance on the left, and which the blundering

¹ [The picture had already been described, and its imaginative powers discussed, in Modern Painters, vol. ii.: see Vol. IV. pp. 263-265.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]