ce.

[Footnote 10: Now in the National Gallery, No. 1034.]

One of the Greek main characters, you know, is to be [Greek:
aprosopos], faceless. If you look first at the faces in this picture
you will find them ugly--often without expression, always ill or
carelessly drawn. The entire purpose of the picture is a mystic
symbolism by motion and chiaroscuro. By motion, first. There is a dome
of burning clouds in the upper heaven. Twelve angels half float, half
dance, in a circle, round the lower vault of it. All their drapery is
drifted so as to make you feel the whirlwind of their motion. They are
seen by gleams of silvery or fiery light, relieved against an equally
lighted blue of inimitable depth and loveliness.

It is impossible for you ever to see a more noble work of passionate
Greek chiaroscuro--rejoicing in light. From this I should like you to
go instantly to Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Burgomaster" (No. 77 in the
Exhibition of Old Masters).

59. That is ignobly passionate chiaroscuro, rejoicing in darkness
rather than light.

You cannot see a finer work by Rembrandt. It has all his power of
rendering character, and the portrait is celebrated through the world.
But it is entirely second-rate work. The character in the face is only
striking to persons who like candle-light effects better than
sunshine; any head by Titian has twice the character, and seen by
daylight instead of gas. The rest of the picture is as false in light
and shade as it is pretentious, made up chiefly of gleaming buttons in
places where no light could possibly reach them; and of an embossed
belt on the shoulder, which people think finely painted because it is
all over lumps of color, not one of which was necessary. That embossed
execution of Rembrandt's is just as much ignorant work as the embossed
projecting jewels of Carlo Crivelli; a real painter never loads (see
the Velasquez, No. 415 in the same exhibition).

60. Finally, from the Rembrandt go to the little Cima (No. 93), "St.
Mark." Thus you have the Sandro Botticelli, of the noble Greek school
in Florence; the Rembrandt, of the debased Greek school in Holland;
and the Cima, of the pure color school of Venice.

The Cima differs from the Rembrandt, by being lovely; from the
Botticelli, by being simple and calm. The painter does not desire the
excitement of rapid movement, nor even the passion of beautiful light.
But he hates darkness as he does death; and falsehood more than
either.