e parts,
all conspire to give his works that appearance of truth unfettered
with the attempt to elevate the general character at the expense of
individuality.

The peculiarity of Titian's portraits, independent of the high character
and simple and dignified attitude of the figure, is a careful and
distinct modelling of the features, with the half-shadows, though
not dark, yet never slurred over--which in other hands would produce
heaviness; but Titian counteracts this by the intense darkness of his
dresses and backgrounds, so that the features, often modelled with
the firmness of sculpture, are rendered comparatively gentle by the
treatment of the other parts of the picture. The portraits of Sir Joshua
have this peculiarity, that however loaded and enriched in every part of
the work, the head is kept smooth, and often thinly painted. The
whole-length of "The Marquis of Granby," and "The Portrait of Mrs.
Siddons," two of his finest pictures, are examples of this mode of
treating the head. This has given rise to an anecdote, that Mrs.
Siddons, looking at the picture when unfinished, begged Sir Joshua not
to touch the head any more--and having promised her, he refrained,
notwithstanding the richness and depth of the fearless glazings would
seem to demand a corresponding force in the head. The truth is, that
Reynolds seems always to have depended upon the small dark shadows
to give solidity to his heads, without clogging them with colour or
dark half-tints. The importance of thus refining upon the head may be
perceived in the portrait of himself, painted _con amore_, and presented
to the Dilettante Society, of which he was a member. The features, and,
indeed, the whole head, depend upon the extreme darks; the judicious
arrangement of these shadows not only gives a pictorial dignity to the
work, from the stamp of science, but also, where the features in nature
are either blunt or mean in themselves, draws off the attention of the
spectator to higher qualities. Shadows are never mean, but are the
stamps of truth rendered beautiful by taste and feeling. Independent
of the advantage of dark touches giving delicacy to the features that
produce them, there is a motion and life given by the vivacity and
freedom of the handling, which cannot with safety be taken with the
features themselves. This quality seems very early to have been Sir
Joshua's greatest anxiety to acquire. In a remark respecting the
pictures of a rival, John Ste