Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/385

Rh fury of fhe winds and waves. All these are treated with great judgment, and give evidence of the most thoughtful care. The same may he said of a group of figures in the air, and of demons in various forms, who are blowing against the ships in the manner of winds. The barques, meanwhile, impelled by the oars, are labouring in various positions to break through or overpass the opposing and towering waves, but are on the very point of being submerged.

This work, to say the truth of it at a word, is of such merit, and so beautiful, that it seems impossible to conceive that pencil and colour, however excellent the hand employing them, could express any thing more exactly like the reality, or more natural, than is this picture; the fury of the waves is exhibited in all its terrors, as are the strength and dexterity of the men engaged with them, with the movement of the waves, the lightnings and gleaming fires of heaven, the Avater broken by the oars, and the bending of these last as they encounter the wave or as they yield to the force of the rowers. What more? I, for my part, do not remember to have seen a more fearful picture than this is, since the whole scene is so truly rendered; the invention, the drawing, the colouring, is each so carefully attended to, and all are so effectively portrayed, that the picture appears to qui^mr, as it might do, if all therein represented were reality. In a Avord, Jacopo Palma deserves the highest commendation for this work, and well merits to be numbered among those who may be called masters of the art, and Avho possess the faculty of giving expression in painting to their most recondite thoughts.

Now it sometimes happens, that in the treatment of these difficult subjects, the painter will throw off the first sketch of his work, as if moA^ed by an inspiration, so to speak, thus