ch other
without touching.

[Illustration: THE LADY WITH THE BROOCH.

From the painting by Reynolds.]

69. It follows also from this law of construction that any master who
can color can always do any pane of his window that he likes,
separately from the rest. Thus, you see, here is one of Sir Joshua's
first sittings: the head is very nearly done with the first color; a
piece of background is put in round it: his sitter has had a pretty
silver brooch on, which Reynolds, having done as much as he chose to
the face for that time, paints quietly in its place below, leaving the
dress between to be fitted in afterwards; and he puts a little patch
of the yellow gown that is to be, at the side. And it follows also
from this law of construction that there must never be any hesitation
or repentance in the direction of your lines of limit. So that not
only in the beautiful dexterity of the joiner's work, but in the
necessity of cutting out each piece of color at once and forever (for,
though you can correct an erroneous junction of black and white
because the gray between has the nature of either, you cannot correct
an erroneous junction of red and green which make a neutral between
them, if they overlap, that is neither red nor green): thus the
practice of color educates at once in neatness of hand and
distinctness of will; so that, as I wrote long ago in the third volume
of "Modern Painters," you are always safe if you hold the hand of a
colorist.

70. I have brought you a little sketch to-day from the foreground of a
Venetian picture, in which there is a bit that will show you this
precision of method. It is the head of a parrot with a little flower
in his beak from a picture of Carpaccio's, one of his series of the
Life of St. George. I could not get the curves of the leaves, and they
are patched and spoiled; but the parrot's head, however badly done, is
put down with no more touches than the Venetian gave it, and it will
show you exactly his method. First, a thin, warm ground had been laid
over the whole canvas, which Carpaccio wanted as an under-current
through all the color, just as there is an under-current of gray in
the Loire drawings. Then on this he strikes his parrot in vermilion,
almost flat color; rounding a little only with a glaze of lake; but
attending mainly to get the character of the bird by the pure outline
of its form, as if it were cut out of a piece of ruby glass.

Then he comes to the beak of it.