File:Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers (1899) (14598293067).jpg

Identifier: greatpicturesassx00sing (find matches)
Title: Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930, ed. and tr
Subjects: Painting
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead and Company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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told us abouthim by Vasari is carefully worked up. The first impres-sion left by this picture — its quaintness — is preciselytypical of the man. He shut himself off from the world,and stopped his ears; lived in the untidiest of rooms, andwould not have his garden tended, preferring to see allthings wild and savage about him. He took his meals attimes and in ways that no other man did, and Romola usedto coax him with sweets and hard-boiled eggs. His fond-ness for quaint landscape ( he would sometimes standbeside a wall, says Vasari, and image forth the mostextraordinary landscapes that ever were ) may be seen inthis picture : so also may his love of animals, in which, saysVasari, he took indescribable pleasure. The subjects of his pictures were generally allegorical.In Romola he paints Tito and Romola as Bacchus andAriadne; here he shows the death of Procris, the story inwhich the ancients embodied the folly of jealousy. ForProcris being told that Cephalus was unfaithful, straight-
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THE DEATH OF PROCRIS 169 way believed the report and secretly followed him to thewoods, for he was a great hunter. And Cephalus calledupon aura, the Latin for breeze, for Cephalus was hotafter the chase : Sweet air, O come, and echo answered, Come, sweet air. But Procris, thinking that he wascalling after his mistress, turned to see, and as she movedshe made a rustling in the leaves, which Cephalus mistookfor the motion of some beast of the forest, and let fly hisunerring dart, which Procris once had given him. But Procris lay among the white wind-flowers,Shot in the throat. From out the little woundThe slow blood drained, as drops in autumn showersDrip from the leaves upon the sodden ground.None saw her die but Lelaps, the swift hound,That watched her dumbly with a wistful fear,Till at the dawn, the horned wood-men foundAnd bore her gently on a sylvan bier,To lie beside the sea, — with many an uncouth tear. Austin Dobson: Old World Lyrics. A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery

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