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is, of course, most interesting. One point in the treatment is especially noticeable: there is a peacock in the rack beyond the cow; and, under other circumstances, one cannot doubt that Tintoret would have liked a peacock in full colour, and would have painted it green and blue with great satisfaction.¹ It is sacrificed to the light, however, and is painted in warm grey, with a dim eye or two in the tail: this process is exactly analogous to Turner’s taking the colours out of the flags of his ships in the “Gosport.” Another striking point is the litter with which the whole picture is filled in order more to confuse the eye: there is straw sticking from the roof, straw all over the hammock floor, and straw struggling hither and thither all over the floor itself; and, to add to the confusion, the glory round the head of the infant, instead of being united and serene, is broken into little bits, and is like a glory of chopped straw. But the most curious thing, after all, is the want of delight in any of the principal figures, and the comparative meanness and commonplaceness of even the folds of the drapery. It seems as if Tintoret had determined to make the shepherds as uninteresting as possible; but one does not see why their very clothes should be ill painted, and their disposition unpicturesque. I believe, however, though it never struck me until I had examined this picture, that this is one of the painter’s fixed principles: he does not, with German sentimentality, make shepherds and peasants graceful or sublime, but he purposely vulgarizes them, not by making their actions or their faces boorish or disagreeable, but rather by painting them ill, and composing their draperies tamely. As far as I recollect at present, the principle is universal with him; exactly in proportion to the dignity of character is the beauty of the painting. He will not put out his strength upon any man belonging to the lower classes; and, in order to know what the painter is, one must see him at work on a king, a senator, or a saint. The curious connexion of this with the aristocratic tendencies of the Venetian nation, when we remember that Tintoret was the greatest man whom that nation produced, may become very interesting, if followed out. I forgot to note that, though the peacock is painted with great regardlessness of colour, there is a feature in it which no common painter would have observed,-the peculiar flatness of the back and undulation of the shoulders: the bird’s body is all there, though its feathers are a good deal neglected; and the same thing is noticeable in a cock who is pecking among the straw near the spectator, though in other respects a shabby cock enough. The fact is, I believe he had made his shepherds so commonplace that he dared not paint his animals well, otherwise one would have looked at nothing in the picture but the peacock, cock, and cow. I cannot tell what the shepherds are offering; they look like milk-bowls, but they are awkwardly held up, with such twistings of body as would have certainly spilt the milk. A woman in front has a basket of eggs; but this I imagine to be merely to keep up the rustic character of the scene, and not part of the shepherds’ offerings.

¹ [For another reference to this “peacock without any colour in it,” see Lectures on Landscape, § 50; and for “Gosport,” Ruskin’s Notes on his Drawings by Turner, No. 37.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]