Caddy Buddy books

The
three living kings are struck with horror; but the painter has much
diminished the moral effect of his work, for this century, at least, by
making one of them hold his nose;--which is regarded by Mr. Ruskin as
an evidence of Orcagna's devotion to the truth; but in this case that
brilliant writer, but most unsafe critical guide, commits an error of a
kind not uncommon with him. The representation of so homely an action,
in such a composition, merely shows that the painter had not arrived at
a just appreciation of the relative value of the actual,--and that he
failed to see that by introducing this unessential incident he diverted
attention from his higher purpose, dragged his picture from a moral to
a material plane, and went at a bound far over the narrow limit between
the horrible and the ludicrous.
St. Macarius is frequently introduced in the pictures of this subject;
and some antiquaries suppose that hence the Dance of Death derived the
name, Dance Macabre, by which it used to be generally known. Others
derive it from the Arabic _mac-bourah_,--a cemetery.


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