rkable
sketch of Leonardo in the Uffizii of Florence is commenced in
brown--over the brown is laid an olive green, on which the highest
lights are struck with white.

Now it is well known to even the merely decorative painter that no color
can be brilliant which is laid over one of a corresponding key, and that
the best ground for any given opaque color will be a comparatively
subdued tint of the complemental one; of green under red, of violet
under yellow, and of _orange_ or _brown_ therefore under _blue_. We
apprehend accordingly that the real value of the brown ground with
Titian was far greater than even with Rubens; it was to support and give
preciousness to cool color above, while it remained itself untouched as
the representative of warm reflexes and extreme depth of transparent
gloom. We believe this employment of the brown ground to be the only
means of uniting majesty of hue with profundity of shade. But its value
to the Fleming is connected with the management of the lights, which we
have next to consider. As we here venture for the first time to disagree
in some measure with Mr. Eastlake, let us be sure that we state his
opinion fairly. He says:--

* * *

"The light warm tint which Van Mander assumes to have been generally
used in the oil-priming was sometimes omitted, as unfinished pictures
prove. Under such circumstances, the picture may have been executed at
once on the sized outline. In the works of Lucas van Leyden, and
sometimes in those of Albert Duerer, the thin yet brilliant lights
exhibit a still brighter ground underneath (p. 389).... It thus
appears that the method proposed by the inventors of oil-painting, of
preserving light within the colors, involved a certain order of
processes. The principal conditions were: first, that the outline should
be completed on the panel before the painting, properly so called, was
begun. The object, in thus defining the forms, was to avoid alterations
and repaintings, which might ultimately render the ground useless
without supplying its place. Another condition was to avoid loading _the
opaque_ colors. _This limitation was not essential with regard to the
transparent colors, as such could hardly exclude the bright ground_
(p. 398).... The system of coloring adopted by the Van Eycks may have
been influenced by the practice of glass-painting. They appear, in their
first efforts at least, to have considered the white panel as
representing lig