NOTES ON THE LOUVRE 465

Drapery, Texture of.

§ 35. Observe also that nothing is thought by Veronese beneath his notice, or beneath his pains. It is impossible to fix any general rule as to what is grand or not, in his hands: Sir Joshua Reynolds’ rule of “it is drapery and nothing more,”¹ is set at utter defiance: indeed I am beginning to think it ought to be. The sitting figure on the extreme left, next the column in a brown tambour, has a dress up to his neck, of green and warm buff in vertical stripes, very broad; the buff has a narrow pink satin bar in the centre, and this, where the dress is wrinkled at the neck, is touched with excessive care and delight, the points of its lustre flashing like sparks of fire. So in the picture of the “Supper at Emmaus,” with the two little girls [No. 1196], the figure of the matron on the left has a drapery of blue satin, with touches of gold (by-the-bye, look at this again: an example of disunity-yet beautiful in colour, though it would be wretched in form) which is studied as carefully as a bit of Chalon²-but in such a manly and magnificent way. The damask white and gold of the two children marvellous also-the pattern so thoroughly drawn without stiffness, so also in the tablecloth of the magdalen-every bit of its pierced border painted thoroughly.

Colour in Architecture.

§ 36. It struck me, on Saturday, that Veronese and such other men were afraid to give colour to their architecture, lest it should become too important and too solid, but felt that they might give it to their draperies, and yet keep them subordinate,* by the various superimpositions of the colours. The negro boy so often

Colour of Veronese.

Drapery.

* I think his usual practice is to keep his high lights colder than his middle tints in draperies. In order to arrive at something like a general conclusion, I set down to-day what was clearest of the colour of the figures in the large Magdalen picture [No. 1193], in doing which I first noted the difference between the heavy monkish drapery with narrow square shadows and masses of light and the feminine drapery with broad masses of middle tint, or even full shadow with wrinkled narrow lights on edges ... [references to sketches]. In the succeeding list 1 is high light, 2 middle tint, 3 deep shadow, a prefixed to the draperies markedly massed in light,b to those markedly narrowed in light: those without a letter are of intermediate character or unnoted:-

1. b. Orange dress of Chorus figure on left my favourite, I coldest, 2 full warm orange, 3 greyer, but full colour still.

2.-Petticoat of same figure above feet, an orange green, 1 and 2 warm orange green, 3 full green.

3.-Yellow, full, of sitting figure-1 full pure yellow, 2-3 greyish yellow, i.e. a kind of colour between yellow lake and Roman ochre; 2 more greenish, 3 (all broad and none dark) more brownish or reddish.

4.-Lilac-1 cold lilac-3 crimson.

5. a. Whitish yellow ground of a turban striped with red (vermilion), a very dull, yet not dirty colour, most difficult either to copy and describe: 1 full, 3 greyed down.

6.-Another more crimsony lilac, 1 cold passing into purply white, 2 purply grey, 3 crimsony purple.

7. a. Vermilion, note it has been painted over a grey: 1 pure and high, too

¹ [See Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p. 417 n.), for this passage.]

² [For this painter, see Vol. X. p. 87 n.]

XII. 2 G

[Version 0.04: March 2008]