Page:A Christmas Faggot (1884, Gurney).djvu/87



Raffaelle’s world-famous picture of the Mother and her Divine Child in the Gallery at Dresden is in a measure known to almost all from prints and photographs. As to the colour of the picture, the significant beauty of which none who have not seen the original can conceive, it should be remembered that the parted curtains are green (the earth-colour), and the Virgin Mother comes forth, as it were, from the white bosom of a stooping heaven, whose far distances, dimly seen, fade into a blue firmament peopled with angelic faces.

Many have felt this picture—at once so serene and so impassioned—to be a revelation. As we yield ourselves to its fascination and search further and further into its depths, we feel that Faber’s words justify themselves: 'Christian Art, rightly