six-sevenths of its area--is either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or
white, all as warm as Giotto could paint them; and set off by minute
spaces only of intense black,--the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders,
his eyes, beard, and the points necessary in the golden pattern behind.
And the whole picture is one glow.

A single glance round at the other subjects will convince you of the
special character in this; but you will recognize also that the four
upper subjects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are shown, are all
in comparatively warm colours, while the two lower ones--of the death,
and the visions after it--have been kept as definitely sad and cold.

Necessarily, you might think, being full of monks' dresses. Not so. Was
there any need for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the
dead body, with the black banner stooped over it in the shape of a
grave? Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco, have made the
celestial visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have appeared in the
centre of a celestial glory to the dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen
of the poor monk, rising through more radiant clouds? Look, however,
how radiant, in the small space allowed out of the blue, they are in
reality. You cannot anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giottesque colour,
though here, you have to mourn over the smallness of the piece, and its
isolation. For the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, and all
the blue sky; but the clouds and four sustaining angels are hardly
retouched at all, and their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings
are left with really very tender and delicate care by the restorer of
the sky. And no one but Giotto or Turner could have painted them.

For in all his use of opalescent and warm colour, Giotto is exactly
like Turner, as, in his swift expressional power, he is like