PARADISE

(_TINTORET_)

JOHN RUSKIN


The chief reason why we all know the _Last Judgment_ of Michael Angelo,
and not the _Paradise_ of Tintoret, is the same love of sensation which
makes us read the _Inferno_ of Dante, and not his _Paradise_; and the
choice, believe me, is our fault, not his; some farther evil influence
is due to the fact that Michael Angelo had invested all his figures with
picturesque and palpable elements of effect, while Tintoret has only
made them lovely in themselves and has been content that they should
deserve, not demand, your attention.

You are accustomed to think the figures of Michael Angelo
sublime--because they are dark, and colossal, and involved, and
mysterious--because, in a word, they look sometimes like shadows, and
sometimes like mountains, and sometimes like spectres, but never like
human beings. Believe me, yet once more, in what I told you long
since--man can invent nothing nobler than humanity. He cannot raise his
form into anything better than God made it, by giving it either the
flight of birds or strength of beasts, by enveloping it in mist, or
heaping it into multitude. Your pilgrim must look like a pilgrim in a
straw hat, or you will not make him into one with cockle and nimbus;