eit of light, they will soon learn to find that their best
beloved masters would not bear transplanting. They belong to the soil
of the country they worked in, while Velazquez, like Rembrandt, can
travel to any climate, and shine with unclouded glory in any
atmosphere. It is impossible to imagine that Rubens could have painted
with the palette that served Velazquez, but the greater of the two men
has given the world an invaluable lesson in appreciation, and because
Nature is full of exquisite colour harmonies that are quite subdued in
tone it is well that we should have been taught to appreciate them.
Velazquez himself declared that Raphael did not please him, but Titian
did; he found in him the greatest of all the Venetians. And yet it is
hard to say that he took anything from the admired master, because with
Velazquez admiration and imitation are things apart. He did not even
imitate El Greco, the painter whose influence upon the world of art is
not yet fully acknowledged or understood, and he did not copy Rubens,
whose splendours would have dazzled a weaker man.

Velazquez merely saw certain truths in Greco's handling of portraiture,
and accepted them. Throughout his life he made a steady improvement in
the quality of the work done, but the changes came through
introspection rather than from any outside influence.

His pictures are divided by many critics into three styles, which may
be divided roughly by his visits to Italy. In the early days the paint
on his canvas was very thick, the shadows were heavy, the composition
was not always conclusive or well devised. The one quality was that
irreproachable throughout all the years was the drawing, which was
always masterly. From the days of the early "Bodegones" down to the
"Meninas" nobody could find a picture in which his drawing is obviously
at fault; although in speaking of Velazquez it is of course difficult
to separate drawing from painting. As he grew up the sense of
composition and colour harmony became stronger and stronger, and the
faults passed. At the same time, Velazquez was a severe critic of his
own work, and a careful examination shows that even those pictures to
which no suspicion can attach were retouched and corrected in the
making.

In this country one secures little more than a glimpse of the master's
work. The National Gallery has nearly a dozen pictures, but there are
certain questions about the authenticity of some of them, and the