462 Painting Anxious not to shrink from the representation of anything real, however terrible, they lost sight of that hidden meaning which so often removes the horror of the most awful scenes, giving to them a spiritual beauty which physical distortion cannot destroy ; and their works are pervaded by a tragic pathos, a passionate misery, inex- pressibly painful. At the head of the Naturalistic School stands Michel - angiolo Amerigi, da Caravaggio (1569 — 1609); his works have some affinity with those of the great artist whose name he bore, and in spite of many shortcomings, give proof of much original power and poetry of feeling. His Entombment of Christ, in the Vatican, is his most famous work : the figure of the Virgin admirably expresses aban- doned sorrow, and that of Christ is full of grandeur and dignity, though wanting in divinity. The Beheading of 8. John, in the Cathedral of Malta, and a portrait in the Louvre of the Grand Master of Malta, are also very fine ; and we may name the Card-players — several times re- peated, the best example being in the Sciarra Palace, Rome — as a spirited composition of the genre class. Jose de Ribera, called from the country of his birth Lo Spagnoletto (1588 — 1656), spent most of his time in Naples. He was first influenced by the Carracci, but afterwards took Caravaggio for his model. Many of his works are in the galleries of Naples and Madrid. We shall shortly come across him again when we read of Spanish art. Salvator Rosa (1615—1673) was a naturalistic master of secondary importance to Caravaggio, who painted land- scapes, historic subjects and genre pictures, excelling principally in portraits, — a likeness of a man, in the Pitti
