The brown ground beneath is left, for
the most part; one touch of black is put for the hollow; two delicate
lines of dark gray define the outer curve; and one little quivering
touch of white draws the inner edge of the mandible. There are just
four touches--fine as the finest penmanship--to do that beak; and yet
you will find that in the peculiar paroquettish mumbling and nibbling
action of it, and all the character in which this nibbling beak
differs from the tearing beak of the eagle, it is impossible to go
farther or be more precise. And this is only an incident, remember, in
a large picture.

71. Let me notice, in passing, the infinite absurdity of ever hanging
Venetian pictures above the line of sight. There are very few persons
in the room who will be able to see the drawing of this bird's beak
without a magnifying-glass; yet it is ten to one that in any modern
gallery such a picture would be hung thirty feet from the ground.

Here, again, is a little bit to show Carpaccio's execution. It is his
signature: only a little wall-lizard, holding the paper in its mouth,
perfect; yet so small that you can scarcely see its feet, and that I
could not, with my finest-pointed brush, copy their stealthy action.

72. And now, I think, the members of my class will more readily
pardon the intensely irksome work I put them to, with the compasses
and the ruler. Measurement and precision are, with me, before all
things; just because, though myself trained wholly in the chiaroscuro
schools, I know the value of color; and I want you to begin with color
in the very outset, and to see everything as children would see it.
For, believe me, the final philosophy of art can only ratify their
opinion that the beauty of a cock robin is to be red, and of a
grass-plot to be green; and the best skill of art is in instantly
seizing on the manifold deliciousness of light, which you can only
seize by precision of instantaneous touch. Of course, I cannot do so
myself; yet in these sketches of mine, made for the sake of color,
there is enough to show you the nature and the value of the method.
They are two pieces of study of the color of marble architecture, the
tints literally "edified," and laid edge to edge as simply on the
paper as the stones are on the walls.

73. But please note in them one thing especially. The testing rule I
gave for good color in the "Elements of Drawing," is that you make the
white precious and the black conspicuous. No