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edly some quality of the enveloping air that diminishes the apparent proportion of the isolated limb. IJ was this same lawwhich also ln-spired the Greeks to give more volume to the corner columns that supported the pediment, to cause them to appear of the same volume as the ones next to them.
These laws, about which we know only too little today, must in ancient times have been codified and explained. Their rediscovery is one of the many ad van ces which yet remain to be made in the field of art. Michelangelo was also responsible for an architectural innovation. By the foreshortening of the figures painted in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel" he was the first to put the effect of perspective into a ceiling. This is a treatment which is profoundly despised by most modern architects. But one may ask if there is not a certain aesthetic value in being able to create an illusion in the placing of a wall, particularly in the case of a room which does not possess the most happy proportions, or in a palace or church in which the resulting impression ofinfinity could greatly enhance the architectural effects. The conception of the ceiling-sky in which the figures fly away towards the heavens can, in many instances, be a more suitable decoration th an the white ceiling, with its un- finished look, which rather stupidly breaks the harmony of the room. One wonders what the chamber of the "Council of Ten" in Venice would be like without such a ceiling. The flat ceilingis appropriate to our present day residences, for reasons of simplicity and economy, but in decoration on a grand scale, the effect often becomes shabby and petty. Perhaps it is becaùse of the fact that Michelangelo's successors in this style of decoration fell so far short (in their own work) of the great master's conception, that the style itself has become discredited. They travestied his spirit and his work in one and the same way that the Romans had travestied the Greeks. We could happily develop our discussions along thest' lines, or follow the individual course of any or all of the great painters of this astonishing period had we many volumes to fill. But such is not the attempt of the present work. There is no lack of material available to give a good knowledge of |