THE OLD MASTERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—May it be permitted to an old Art lover, but unfor- tunately one of the uninitiated, according to the ideas of "D. S. M.," to ask your Art critic to be so good as to put in somewhat plainer language what he means (in the Spectator of January 13th) when he says :—" Of the Old Masters [at Burlington House], the painter who most takes one's breath away is Melozzo da Forli. Here is one of those painters who were drunk with perspective and the music of spaces. Here is one of the pictures that, by sheer nobility of arrangement, catch at the sight before one knows what is represented."
It is evident enough to the oldest sight that this picture is dreadfully faded; indeed, as the Times' critic says, it is "a wreck." Now I turn to the "Encyclopeadia Britannica " (ninth edition), Vol. IX., p. 414, and I find that of the "eminent painter particularly renowned as the first who practised fore-
shortening with much success Only three works are now extant which can be safely assigned to Melozzo,"—the picture in question not being one of the three named. The explanation by "D. S. M." would therefore be all the more
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