Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/26

Rh portion of this book, but too little is known of their lives and works to be of present interest. There is, however, little doubt that many pictures attributed to "the School of" various masters were painted by women.

Art did not reach its perfection in Venice until later than in Florence, and its special contribution, its glorious color, imparted to it an attraction unequalled on the sensuous plane. This color surrounded the artists of that sumptuous city of luxurious life and wondrous pageants, and was so emphasized by the marvellous mingling of the semi-mist and the brilliancy of its atmosphere that no man who merited the name of artist could be insensible to its inspiration.

The old Venetian realism was followed, in the time of the Renaissance, by startling developments. In the works of Tintoretto and Veronese there is a combination of gorgeous draperies, splendid and often licentious costumes, brilliant metal accessories, and every possible device for enhancing and contrasting colors, until one is bewildered and must adjust himself to these dazzling spectacles—religious subjects though they may be—before, any serious thought or judgment can be brought to bear upon their artistic merit; these two great contemporaries lived and worked in the final decades of the sixteenth century.

We know that many women painted pictures in Venice before the seventeenth century, although we have accurate knowledge of but few, and of these an account is given later in this book.