Four Sketches of St. Mark's

Title: Four Sketches of St. Mark's
Artist: Sir Frederic Leighton
Status: R. A.
First Exhibited Date: 1865
Type: Oil on canvas
Size (HxW, mm): 299 x 470
Current Exhibition Location: Paul Mellon Centre: PA-F04052-0043
Lent By: the artist
Catalog Number: 57 to 60
Catalog Page: 9
Catalog Description: St. Mark's is the cathedral of Venice, and one of the most famous buildings in the world. the interior is thus described by RuskinL "it is lost in deep twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced. Round the domes of its roof the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray or two from some far away casement wanders into the darkness and casts a narrow phospheric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapel; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames, and the glories, round the heads of the sculptured saints, flash out upom us as we pass them, and sink into gloom."