sted by Perugino and Fra Bartolommeo.

Michelangelo adapted to his own uses and bent to his own genius
motives originated by the Pisani, Giotto, Giacopo della Quercia,
Donatello, Masaccio, while working in the spirit of Signorelli. He
fused and recast the antecedent materials of design in sculpture and
painting, producing a quintessence of art beyond which it was
impossible to advance without breaking the rhythm, so intensely
strung, and without contradicting too violently the parent
inspiration. He strained the chord of rhythm to its very utmost, and
made incalculable demands upon the religious inspiration of its
predecessors. His mighty talent was equal to the task of transfusion
and remodelling which the exhibition of the supreme style demanded.
But after him there remained nothing for successors except mechanical
imitation, soulless rehandling of themes he had exhausted by reducing
them to his imperious imagination in a crucible of fiery intensity.

V

No critic with a just sense of phraseology would call Michelangelo a
colourist in the same way as Titian and Rubens were colourists. Still
it cannot be denied with justice that the painter of the Sistine had a
keen perception of what his art required in this region, and of how to
attain it. He planned a comprehensive architectural scheme, which
served as setting and support for multitudes of draped and undraped
human figures. The colouring is kept deliberately low and subordinate
to the two main features of the design--architecture, and the plastic
forms of men and women. Flesh-tints, varying from the strong red tone
of Jonah's athletic manhood, through the glowing browns of the seated
Genii, to the delicate carnations of Adam and the paler hues of Eve;
orange and bronze in draperies, medallions, decorative nudes, russets
like the tints of dead leaves; lilacs, cold greens, blue used
sparingly; all these colours are dominated and brought into harmony by
the greys of the architectural setting. It may indeed be said that the
different qualities of flesh-tints, the architectural greys, and a
dull bronzed yellow strike the chord of the composition. Reds are
conspicuous by their absence in any positive hue. There is no
vermilion, no pure scarlet or crimson, but a mixed tint verging upon
lake. The yellows are brought near to orange, tawny, bronze, except in
the hair of youthful personages, a large majority of whom are blonde.
The only colour which starts out staringly i