rpness is too dead a thing, and although a firmness of run
will be allowed to be felt, subtle variations will be introduced to
prevent deadness. The Venetians from Giorgione's time were great masters
of this music of edges. The structure of lines surrounding the masses on
which their compositions are built were fused in the most mysterious and
delightful way. But although melting into the surrounding mass, they are
always firm and never soft and feeble. Study the edge in such a good
example of the Venetian manner as the "Bacchus and Ariadne" at the
National Gallery, and note where they are hard and where lost.

There is one rather remarkable fact to be observed in this picture and
many Venetian works, and this is that the #most accented edges are
reserved for unessential parts#, like the piece of white drapery on the
lower arm of the girl with the cymbals, and the little white flower on
the boy's head in front. The edges on the flesh are everywhere fused and
soft, the draperies being much sharper. You may notice the same thing in
many pictures of the later Venetian schools. The greatest accents on the
edges are rarely in the head, except it may be occasionally in the eyes.
But they love to get some strongly-accented feature, such as a
crisply-painted shirt coming against the soft modelling of the neck, to
balance the fused edges in the flesh. In the head of Philip IV in our
National Gallery the only place where Velazquez has allowed himself
anything like a sharp edge is in the high lights on the chain hanging
round the neck. The softer edges of the principal features in these
compositions lend a largeness and mystery to these parts, and to restore
the balance, sharpnesses are introduced in non-essential accessories.

In the figure with the white tunic from Velazquez's "Surrender of
Breda," here reproduced, note the wonderful variety on the edges of the
white masses of the coat and the horse's nose, and also that the
sharpest accents are reserved for such non-essentials as the bows on the
tunic and the loose hair on the horse's forehead. Velazquez's edges are
wonderful, and cannot be too carefully studied. He worked largely in
flat tones or planes; but this richness and variety of his edges keeps
his work from looking flat and dull, like that of some of his followers.
I am sorry to say this variety does not come out so well in the
reproduction on page 194 [Transcribers Note: Plate XLIV] as I could
have wished, the half-t