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one of the pious humbug.  There isn't a sincere figure in any one of them--that is of the sacred subjects.  It isn't just crude drawing or painting, nor the absurd anachronisms--I realize the things were painted for churches to rouse religious feelings, not as illustrations--but they are cant put into paint.  The faces of the Virgin and women saints are as inane as the faces on out magazine covers today.  Events that to one with imagination and any feeling would be terribly cruel, such as the crucifixion,,the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, are depicted as affectedly as if the characters were [[underlined]] playing [[/underlined]] at suffering.  There is a picture by Perugino of the Virgin and child with St. Sebastian full of arrows standing beside her.  She looks on poor Sebastian quite calmly and a little bored.  Sebastian is languidly gazing toward heaven, the arrows don't seem to be bothering him much.  People gazing at the crucifixion wear an expression of gentle sadness, as they might regard a maimed bird.  This prevailing affectation carries over into pictures not sacred.  There is a birth of Venus by Botticelli in which Venus standing in a seashell has the same drooping air of sweet saintliness as the madonnas and lady saints.  She even has the conventional knock-kneed bend to her leg prevalent among saints. [[left margin]] [[image - pencil sketch illustrating the bend in the leg Chase describes]] [[/left margin]] (This bend of the leg survives today in all the figures showing  ^[[dress]] patterns, it is a character "linked" with conventionality apparently)  She modestly hides a bit of her anatomy with a strand of her hair--Venus of all people!  It was a relief to go out into the gallery with the old Roman marbles, so decently unconscious of their nudity.  It was like going into the fresh air from a fetid atmosphere.  A few non-religious pictures were honest, Raphael's Pope Julius particularly.  Just one Holy Family is free from cant, a relatively small round picture by Michelangelo.  They are queerly grouped and the mother would have a cramp in her leg