of line, beauty of modeling, and harmony of color could hardly go farther, and the pure joy of living, which is the essence of the Greek spirit, is perfectly expressed here. Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery, is also a celebrated and beautiful picture, showing the young god leaping from his chariot drawn by leopards, as he first sces Ariadne. Watts’s Ariadne in Naxos (Metropolitan Museum) is a noble picture full of dignity and expression. The Birth of Venus from the Sea is a subject too often emphasized on the sensuous side, but Botticelli’s famous and beautiful picture (Florence Academy) expresses the essential poetry of the myth. The goddess floats on a seashell towards the shore where she is welcomed by the Graces.
A mythical hero endeared to us in Hawthorne’s Wonder Book is the gallant Perseus, who set forth to secure the Medusa’s head and ended by the rescue of Andromeda. He was equipped for the adventure, as we all remember, by the sandals of Hermes and the helmet and shield of Athena. Burne-Jones has illustrated the whole tale in a series of five pictures, of which the best subject for school is the hero receiving the precious gifts from the sea maidens. The bronze statue by Cellini, which is one of the sights of Florence in the Loggia dei Lanzi, shows the victor standing on the body of Medusa holding aloft his gruesome trophy, the head with the snaky locks. Canova, in a later century, repeated the same subject in a more elegant but less vigorous figure in marble. The Rescue of Andromeda is the subject of a fresco by Guido
