296 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

maintain that this method, necessary in fresco, and followed habitually in the first oil pictures, has produced the noblest renderings of human expression in the whole range of the examples of art: the best works of Raphael, all the glorious portraiture of Ghirlandajo and Masaccio, all the mightiest achievements of religious zeal in Francia, Perugino, Bellini, and such others. Take as an example in fresco Masaccio’s hasty sketch of himself now in the Uffizii; and in oil, the two heads of monks by Perugino in the Academy of Florence;¹ and we shall search in vain for any work in portraiture, executed in opaque colours, which could contend with them in depth of expression or in fulness of recorded life-not mere imitative vitality, but chronicled action. And we have no hesitation in asserting that where the object of the painter is expression, and the picture is of a size admitting careful execution, the transparent system, developed as it is found in Bellini or Perugino, will attain the most profound and serene colour, while it will never betray into looseness or audacity. But if in the mind of the painter invention prevail over veneration,-if his eye be creative rather than penetrative, and his hand more powerful than patient-let him not be confined to a system where light, once lost, is as irrecoverable as time, and where all success depends on husbandry of resource. Do not measure out to him his sunshine in inches of gesso; let him have the power of striking it even out of darkness and the deep.

35. If human life were endless, or human spirit could fit its compass to its will, it is possible a perfection might be reached which should unite the majesty of invention with the meekness of love. We might conceive that the thought, arrested by the readiest means, and at first represented by the boldest symbols, might afterwards be set forth with solemn and studied expression, and that the power might

¹ [“Masaccio’s sketch of himself in the Uffizii” (in the Gallery of Artists’ Portraits by themselves) is now believed to be by and of Filippino Lippi. The heads by Perugino are of Bigio Milanesi, General of the Order of Vallombrosians, and Baldasare, a monk of the same order.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]