ls of them as
are otherwise beyond attainment." This, in a very difficult and
impalpable region of aesthetic criticism, is finely said, and accords
with Michelangelo's own utterances upon art and beauty in his poems.
Dwelling like a star apart, communing with the eternal ideas, the
permanent relations of the universe, uttering his inmost thoughts
about these mysteries through the vehicles of science and of art, for
which he was so singularly gifted, Michelangelo, in no loose or
trivial sense of that phrase, proved himself to be a creator. He
introduces us to a world seen by no eyes except his own, compels us to
become familiar with forms unapprehended by our senses, accustoms us
to breathe a rarer and more fiery atmosphere than we were born into.

The vehicles used by Michelangelo in his designs were mostly pen and
chalk. He employed both a sharp-nibbed pen of some kind, and a broad
flexible reed, according to the exigencies of his subject or the
temper of his mood. The chalk was either red or black, the former
being softer than the latter. I cannot remember any instances of those
chiaroscuro washes which Raffaello handled in so masterly a manner,
although Michelangelo frequently combined bistre shading with pen
outlines. In like manner he does not seem to have favoured the metal
point upon prepared paper, with which Lionardo produced unrivalled
masterpieces. Some drawings, where the yellow outline bites into a
parchment paper, blistering at the edges, suggest a rusty metal in the
instrument. We must remember, however, that the inks of that period
were frequently corrosive, as is proved by the state of many documents
now made illegible through the gradual attrition of the paper by
mineral acids. It is also not impossible that artists may have already
invented what we call steel pens. Sarpi, in the seventeenth century,
thanks a correspondent for the gift of one of these mechanical
devices. Speaking broadly, the reed and the quill, red and black
chalk, or _matita,_ were the vehicles of Michelangelo's expression as
a draughtsman. I have seen very few examples of studies heightened
with white chalk, and none produced in the fine Florentine style of
Ghirlandajo by white chalk alone upon a dead-brown surface. In this
matter it is needful to speak with diffidence; for the sketches of our
master are so widely scattered that few students can have examined the
whole of them; and photographic reproductions, however admirable in
t