Pharaoh's Daughter Finds Moses BY JACOPO ROBUSTI, COMMONLY CALLED TINTOR- OF THE LATER SIXTEENTH CENTURY. I "When she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.”—Ex., 2, 5. N this, one of the most famous pictures of the great Italian period of painting, the artist Tintoretto pictures the finding of the infant Moses by the river side. The mediæval artists knew little or nothing of the life and costumes of biblical days. It scarcely even occurred to them that those days had been different from their own. Hence they painted the Egyptian women in mediæval Italian costumes and amid Italian scenery. The difference, however, is unimportant; for the Bible story is of such world-wide significance and of such human simplicity that its truths can readily be adapted to every age and clime. Recent art has even produced quite a school of religious painters who try to bring home the meaning of Christ's life by picturing him in the midst of people in modern costumes. So, here, the handmaids of the princess stoop above the babe with a grace and tenderness peculiar to no single century, with a motherly instinct which is eternal, and was as true in mediæval Italy as in ancient Egypt. The rich jewels of the princess do not alter her woman's heart. |