Chap. IX. CHAPEL OF THE SCROVEGNI AT PADUA. 270 is necessary. The draperies are in general damaged, and the figures in the background have suffered a great deal. No. 34. The crucifixion. No. 35. The Pieta. No. 36. The Noli me tangere. No. 37. The ascension. This is a fine composition, in which the painter really conveys the idea of a form in mo tion; and a great advance is made upon the primitive re presentation of the same subject in the upper church of Assisi. Whilst, there, the Saviour’s form is partly concealed, here, he is completely visible rising on a cloud, surrounded by a choir of angels. Below him are the apostles. No. 38. The descent of the Holy Spirit. It will be remarked that in this series of sacred history Giotto had to depict the birth of the Virgin as well as that of the Saviour. In the first, he brought some of the usual graceful incidents together in a very charming form. In the second the moment is chosen when the infant is given by its mother to an attendant. Giotto, in representing the episode of the Saviour’s baptism, did not venture to alter the time-honoured form of a composition which had been repeated without change since the seventh century. For this he has been blamed, and perhaps justly, by M. Ruskin. 1 No doubt, the Saviour stands in a hole, S. John on the right, accompanied by two followers, pouring water over his head, whilst, on the left, two angels hold the Redeemer’s vestments. In the oldest Christian form of this subject, at Ravenna, the necessity of bringing the two banks of Jordan into close proximity, had been avoided by the surrender to a river- god of an office, which, in later conceptions, was performed by ministering angels. The gradual disappearance of pagan forms in the progress of centuries seems to have left the Christian artist no alternative but to sacrifice the composition to the necessities of a subject of which the type was unalterably fixed. It may be asked, why it 1 See M r . Ruskin’s comments j in the publications of the Arundel on the frescos of the Arena chapel | Society.