ks of Rembrandt, but we think it may be so seen in some of the
back-grounds of Correggio. "The influence of the colour of the vehicle on
the quantity and depth of shadow is indeed plainly to be traced in the
general style of oil painting, as compared with tempera and other
methods." In a note on this passage we are told that "Sandrart relates, it
is to be hoped on no good authority, that Rubens induced Jordaens to paint
some works in tempera for tapestries, in the hope that his rival, by being
accustomed to the light style of colouring suitable to tempera, might lose
his characteristic force in oil. The biographer even adds that the scheme
answered."

Now we make this quotation, which is not creditable to Sandrart, to remove
if we may its sting: for who would wish this moral stigma to rest upon the
character of so great a man as Rubens? We have no doubt the advice was
conscientiously given, and with a true accurate judgment of the powers of
Jordaens. We can easily imagine that the heavy handling, the somewhat
muddy loading of the colour in every part of the pictures of Jordaens,
must have been offensive to Rubens, who so delighted in the freer,
fresher, and more variable colouring and handling. And such is the
judgment which the present day passes upon Jordaens, to the depreciation
of his works, and in vindication of the advice of Rubens.

As both amber and sandarac had a tendency to darken the colours, "a
lighter treatment," Mr Eastlake adds, "has rarely been successful without
a modification of the vehicle itself." In treating more fully of the
Italian methods, we shall probably have many recipes for this purpose. We
are, however, in possession of a recipe of this kind described by Armenini
of Faenga about the middle of the sixteenth century, as used by Correggio
and Parmigiano. His authorities, he informs us, for so designating it were
the immediate scholars of those masters; and he states that he had himself
witnessed its general use throughout Lombardy by the best painters. His
description is as follows. "Some took clear fir turpentine, dissolved it
in a pipkin on a very moderate fire; when it was dissolved, they added an
equal quantity of petroleum, (naptha,) throwing it in immediately on
removing the liquified turpentine." A long note is appended upon this
varnish or 'olio d'abezzo,' with a very interesting note by an Italian
writer of the present century, who attributes the preservation of
Corregio's pictures to