342 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



167. Now it is precisely the same feeling, or want of feel- 

 ing, in the lower Italian (nor always in the lower classes only) 

 which makes him demand the kind of subject for his secular 

 drama ; and the Crucifixion and Pieta for his religious drama. 

 The only part of Christianity he can enjoy is its horror ; and 

 even the saint or saintess are not always denying themselves 

 severely, either by the contemplation of torture, or the com- 

 panionship with disease. 



Nevertheless, we must be cautious, on the other hand, to 

 allow full value to the endurance, by tender and delicate per- 

 sons, of what is really loathsome or distressful to them in the 

 service of others ; and I think this picture of Holbein's indi- 

 cative of the exact balance and lightness of his own mind in 

 this matter, and therefore of his power to conceive a true saint 

 also. He had to represent St. Catherine's chief effort ; he 

 paints her ministering to the sick, and, among them, is a 

 leper ; and finding it thus his duty to paint leprosy, he cour- 

 ageously himself studies it from the life. Not to insist on its 

 horror ; but to assert it, to the needful point of fact, which he 

 does with medical accuracy. 



Now here is just a case in which science, in a subordinate 

 degree, is really required for a spiritual and moral purpose. 

 And you find Holbein does not shrink from it even in this ex- 

 treme case in which it is most painful. 



168. If, therefore, you do find him in other cases not using 

 it, you may be sure he knew it to be unnecessary. 



Now it may be disputable whether in order to draw a living 

 Madonna, one need to know how many ribs she has ; but it 

 would have seemed indisputable that in order to draw a skel- 

 eton, one must know how many ribs it has. 



Holbein is par excellence the draughtsman of skeletons. 

 His painted Dance of Death was, and his engraved Dance of 

 Death is, principal of such things, without any comparison or 

 denial. He draws skeleton after skeleton, in every possible 

 gesture ; but never so much as counts their ribs ! He neither 

 knows nor cares how many ribs a skeleton has. There are al- 

 ways enough to rattle. 



Monstrous, you think, in impudence, Holbein for his care- 



