become a force in general culture, partly for this very reason that they
have absorbed into themselves all such workmen as Sandro Botticelli;
and, over and above mere technical or antiquarian criticism, general
criticism may be very well employed in that sort of interpretation which
adjusts the position of these men to general culture, whereas smaller
men can be the proper subjects only of technical or antiquarian
treatment. But, besides those great men, there is a certain number of
artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to
us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere, and
these, too, have their place in general culture, and have to be
interpreted to it by those who have felt their charm strongly, and are
often the objects of a special diligence and a consideration wholly
affectionate, just because there is not about them the stress of a great
name and authority. Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the
freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the
earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting
period in the history of the mind; in studying his work one begins to
understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had
been called.

_Studies in the History of the Renaissance_ (London, 1873).




THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

(_VERONESE_)

JOHN RUSKIN