[21] In the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Mr. Ruskin was the first to point out this stroke of genius.
The Doges’ Palace contains a score of Tintoret’s imaginative paintings and many of his portraits, and there are few churches in Venice which have not at least one altar-piece by him. His best portraits, as I think, outrank even Titian’s best: they have a vital quality, an _inevitableness_, which can be felt, but not described. What a concourse of doges, senators, procurators, nobles, and soldiers he has portrayed! Their grave, refined faces, their stately carriage, the sobriety as often as the sumptuousness of their dress, bear witness to the glory and power of Venice; that glory and power which had begun to decline in the sixteenth century, though the Venetians perceived it not. They misread the signs. They could not believe that Venice, which had continually grown in wealth during ten centuries, could decline or perish. _Esto perpetua!_--may she live forever!--was the last prayer of her historian, Sarpi, the abiding dream of all her citizens.
It was Tintoret’s pride to immortalize on canvas her legends and her history, and to illustrate her grandeur by means of allegory. He painted the popular stories of the recovery of St. Mark’s body from Alexandria, and of the miracles performed by that holy patron. He painted the siege of Zara, the battle of Lepanto, and the ambassadors of Venice holding head before the haughtiness of Frederick Babarossa. He painted Venice enthroned among the gods, and Venice as mistress of the sea.
But his genius was not confined to the expression of pomp and patriotism. It delighted not only in majestic flights of imagination, but also in contemplating and in setting forth pure beauty. In one of the smaller rooms of the Ducal Palace are two classic subjects by him,--“Mercury and the Graces,” “Ariadne and Bacchus,”--which, whether we regard their perfect symmetry, or the grace of their forms, or the delicious poetic spirit that emanates from them like fragrance from a bed of lilies, have few rivals in loveliness. They arouse in some beholders a mood akin to that which a joyous theme in one of Beethoven’s symphonies can arouse,--a mood sweeter than hope itself, or the brightest afterglow of memory; for, while it lasts, the present, flooded with peace and beauty and a nameless ecstacy, satisfies the soul.