ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



The Pontine marshes have supplied Costa with many 

 subjects, more especially the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Porto d'Anzio and the Circean shore. " Coeli 

 enarrant gloriam Dei " is the title of a wide view over 

 the sea and the marshes, under a fine sky and rolling 

 cumulus cloud. " A Sirocco Day on the Shore near 

 Rome," the property of Mr. Stopford Brooke, shows us 

 the same coast with a foreground of stunted brushwood, 

 and a gleam of light breaking through the heavy 

 clouds on the foam-crested waves and the tired wood- 

 man bending under his load. One exquisite little 

 picture on which the painter himself set great store 

 is a " Sunrise near Terracina," with a stretch of grassy 

 sward and ploughland in the foreground, and in the 

 distance the summit of Monte Circeo rising above the 

 pale blue line of sea a little gem of rich and delicate 

 colour. Another small painting which had an especial 

 interest for Costa is that of a fishing-boat drawn upon 

 the beach under the burning glow of an August 

 sunset. This little study was long the property of 

 Lord Leighton, and in that boat Costa and George 

 Mason once lived during a whole summer. Towards 

 the close of this period Costa painted the large picture 

 of " Women carrying Wood to the Boats on the Shore 

 of Porto d'Anzio," a work in which the studies of his 

 Roman years may be said to be summed up. Here 



the statuesque forms and majestic bearing of these 

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