their introduction
into historical works.

That we may more clearly perceive the rank which Rembrandt holds as a
colourist, I shall endeavour to investigate the peculiar qualities that
characterise the several manners of Titian, Rembrandt, and Reynolds--the
one living before, the other after our artist, and of course confining
the investigation to portraiture alone. I have selected Titian in
preference to Vandyke, not that I consider him, in this branch,
superior; on the contrary, I agree with Sir Joshua, in mentioning
Vandyke as the greatest portrait painter that ever existed, all things
considered--but I wish to confine myself exclusively to colour, and
in this branch it is evident that these three great artists are more
similar in their works than any other painters; but Titian, by the
concurrent testimony of his contemporaries and all succeeding judges
upon the subject, is the highest authority on the great leading
principles of colour. Besides, his works are in many instances uninjured
by the rough usage of uneducated men. With regard to the works of
Rembrandt, which are in comparison as of yesterday, many of them remain
in the same frames and on the same walls on which they were first hung.
The works of Reynolds, though of a more recent date, have suffered more,
not from the ruthless hand of the picture-cleaner, but from his making
use of more perishable materials. Still, from the variety of his
vehicles, changed from an anxiety to get a nearer approach to the look
and appearance of nature, many of his pictures are sufficiently perfect
to build an investigation upon. Previous to the appearance of Giorgione
and Titian, this branch of the art differed but little from the
treatment the several heads received in historical pictures generally;
only with this exception, that when introduced as the component parts
of a work where a story had to be told, they were imbued with action
and expression; but when treated as simple portraiture, the higher
qualities were left out, and a quiet map of the face, to use a familiar
expression, was all that was desired to be transferred to the canvas.
Neither did the head receive that superiority over every other
subordinate part of the work which science and a long line of celebrated
examples seem now so imperatively to demand.

In drawing a comparison between the three great portrait painters, it
is necessary, in the first instance, to refer to the several characters
of their model