THE ACCADEMIA.

I: TITIAN, TINTORETTO, AND PAUL VERONESE The important rooms--Venetian art in London--The ceiling of the thousand wings--Some early painters--Titian's "Assumption"-- Tintoretto's "Miracle of S.Mark"-- A triumph of novelty--The Campanile miracle--Altar-pieces--Paul Veronese--Leonardo drawings--Indifferent works--Jesus in the house of Levi--A painter on his trial--Other Tintorettos--Another miracle of S.Mark--Titian's last painting.
The Accademia, which is to Venice what the National Gallery is to London, the Louvre to Paris, and the Uffizi to Florence, is, I may say, at once, as a whole a disappointment; and my advice to visitors is to disregard much of it absolutely.
The reasons why Rooms II, IV, IX, X, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX alone are important are two.

One is that so wide a gulf is fixed between the best Venetian painters--Bellini, Titian, Carpaccio, Giorgione (but he is not represented here), Palma, Tintoretto, Veronese, and the next best; and the other, that Venetian painting of the second order is rarely interesting.

In the Tuscan school an effort to do something authentic or arresting persists even to the fifth and sixth rank of painter; but not so here.
Were it not for the Accademia's Tintorettos, Carpaccios and Bellinis, our own Venetian collection in Trafalgar Square would be much more interesting; and even as it is we have in "The Origin of the Milky Way" a Tintoretto more fascinating than any here; in "Bacchus and Ariadne" a more brilliant Titian than any here; some Bellinis, such as "The Agony in the Garden," the portrait of Loredano, and "The Death of S.Peter Martyr," that challenge his best here; two Giorgiones and several pictures notably of his school that cannot be matched here; the finest Catena that exists; a more charming Basaiti than any here; a better Antonello da Messina; and, according to some judges, the best Paul Veronese in the world: "The House of Darius"; while when it comes to Carlo Crivelli, he does not exist here at all.
But it has to be remembered that one does not go to Venice to see pictures.

One goes to see Venice: that is to say, an unbelievable and wonderful city of spires and palaces, whose streets are water and whose sunsets are liquid gold.