ens and Rembrandt in its
decomposition. If an award is absolutely to be made of superiority to
either system, we apprehend that the palm of mechanical skill must be
rendered to the latter, and higher dignity of moral purpose confessed in
the former; in proportion to the nobleness of the subject and the
thoughtfulness of its treatment, simplicity of color will be found more
desirable. Nor is the far higher perfection of drawing attained by the
earlier method to be forgotten. Gradations which are expressed by
delicate execution of the _darks_, and then aided by a few strokes of
recovered light, must always be more subtle and true than those which
are struck violently forth with opaque color; and it is to be remembered
that the handling of the brush, with the early Italian masters,
approached in its refinement to drawing with the point--the more
definitely, because the work was executed, as we have just seen, with
little change or play of local color. And--whatever discredit the looser
and bolder practice of later masters may have thrown on the hatched and
penciled execution of earlier periods--we maintain that this method,
necessary in fresco, and followed habitually in the first oil pictures,
has produced the noblest renderings of human expression in the whole
range of the examples of art: the best works of Raphael, all the
glorious portraiture of Ghirlandajo and Masaccio, all the mightiest
achievements of religious zeal in Francia, Perugino, Bellini, and such
others. Take as an example in fresco Masaccio's hasty sketch of himself
now in the Uffizii; and in oil, the two heads of monks by Perugino in
the Academy of Florence; and we shall search in vain for any work in
portraiture, executed in opaque colors, which could contend with them in
depth of expression or in fullness of _recorded_ life--not mere
imitative vitality, but chronicled action. And we have no hesitation in
asserting that where the object of the painter is expression, and the
picture is of a size admitting careful execution, the transparent
system, developed as it is found in Bellini or Perugino, will attain the
most profound and serene color, while it will never betray into
looseness or audacity. But if in the mind of the painter invention
prevail over veneration,--if his eye be creative rather than
penetrative, and his hand more powerful than patient--let him not be
confined to a system where light, once lost, is as irrecoverable as
time, and where all su