A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

by the master, and consequently when the spectator reaches

it at last, he is taken unawares, he is unprepared,

and it bursts upon him with a stupefying surprise.

One is lost in wonder at all the thought and care which

this elaborate planning must have cost. A general glance

at the picture could never suggest that there was a hair

trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is not mentioned in the title

even–which is, “Pope Alexander III. and the Doge Ziani,

the Conqueror of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa”;

you see, the title is actually utilized to help

divert attention from the Trunk; thus, as I say,

nothing suggests the presence of the Trunk, by any hint,

yet everything studiedly leads up to it, step by step.

Let us examine into this, and observe the exquisitely

artful artlessness of the plan.

At the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women,

one of them with a child looking over her shoulder at

a wounded man sitting with bandaged head on the ground.

These people seem needless, but no, they are there

for a purpose; one cannot look at them without seeing

the gorgeous procession of grandees, bishops, halberdiers,

and banner-bearers which is passing along behind them;

one cannot see the procession without feeling the curiosity

to follow it and learn whither it is going; it leads him

to the Pope, in the center of the picture, who is talking

with the bonnetless Doge–talking tranquilly, too,

although within twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum,

and not far from the drummer two persons are blowing horns,

and many horsemen are plunging and rioting about–indeed,

twenty-two feet of this great work is all a deep and

happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession,

and then we come suddenly upon eleven and one-half feet

of turmoil and racket and insubordination. This latter

state of things is not an accident, it has its purpose.

But for it, one would linger upon the Pope and the Doge,

thinking them to be the motive and supreme feature of

the picture; whereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously,

to see what the trouble is about. Now at the very END

of this riot, within four feet of the end of the picture,

and full thirty-six feet from the beginning of it,

the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness

upon the spectator, in all its matchless perfection,

and the great master’s triumph is sweeping and complete.

From that moment no other thing in those forty feet of canvas

has any charm; one sees the Hair Trunk, and the Hair Trunk

only–and to see it is to worship it. Bassano even placed

objects in the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature

whose pretended purpose was to divert attention from it yet

a little longer and thus delay and augment the surprise;

for instance, to the right of it he has placed a stooping

man with a cap so red that it is sure to hold the eye

for a moment–to the left of it, some six feet away,

he has placed a red-coated man on an inflated horse,

and that coat plucks your eye to that locality the next

moment–then, between the Trunk and the red horseman he

has intruded a man, naked to his waist, who is carrying

a fancy flour-sack on the middle of his back instead

of on his shoulder–this admirable feat interests you,

of course–keeps you at bay a little longer, like a sock

or a jacket thrown to the pursuing wolf–but at last,

in spite of all distractions and detentions, the eye

of even the most dull and heedless spectator is sure

to fall upon the World’s Masterpiece, and in that

moment he totters to his chair or leans upon his guide

for support.

Descriptions of such a work as this must necessarily

be imperfect, yet they are of value. The top of the Trunk

is arched; the arch is a perfect half-circle, in the Roman

style of architecture, for in the then rapid decadence

of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome was already

beginning to be felt in the art of the Republic.

The Trunk is bound or bordered with leather all around