oyment or of judgment, that which is concerned with
nobility of color is least communicable: it is also perhaps the most
rare. The achievements of the draughtsman are met by the curiosity of
all mankind; the appeals of the dramatist answered by their sympathy;
the creatures of imagination acknowledged by their fear; but the voice
of the colorist has but the adder's listening, charm he never so wisely.
Men vie with each other, untaught, in pursuit of smoothness and
smallness--of Carlo Dolci and Van Huysum; their domestic hearts may
range them in faithful armies round the throne of Raphael; meditation
and labor may raise them to the level of the great mountain pedestal of
Buonarotti--"vestito gia de' raggi del pianeta, che mena dritto altrui
per ogni calle;" but neither time nor teaching will bestow the sense,
when it is not innate, of that wherein consists the power of Titian and
the great Venetians. There is proof of this in the various degrees of
cost and care devoted to the preservation of their works. The glass, the
curtain, and the cabinet guard the preciousness of what is petty, guide
curiosity to what is popular, invoke worship to what is mighty;--Raphael
has his palace--Michael his dome--respect protects and crowds traverse
the sacristy and the saloon; but the frescoes of Titian fade in the
solitudes of Padua, and the gesso falls crumbled from the flapping
canvas, as the sea-winds shake the Scuola di San Rocco.

136. But if, on the one hand, mere abstract excellence of color be thus
coldly regarded, it is equally certain that no work ever attains
enduring celebrity which is eminently deficient in this great respect.
Color cannot be indifferent; it is either beautiful and auxiliary to the
purposes of the picture, or false, froward, and opposite to them. Even
in the painting of Nature herself, this law is palpable; chiefly
glorious when color is a predominant element in her working, she is in
the next degree most impressive when it is withdrawn altogether: and
forms and scenes become sublime in the neutral twilight, which were
indifferent in the colors of noon. Much more is this the case in the
feebleness of imitation; all color is bad which is less than beautiful;
all is gross and intrusive which is not attractive; it repels where it
cannot inthrall, and destroys what it cannot assist. It is besides the
painter's peculiar craft; he who cannot color is no painter. It is not
painting to grind earths with oil and lay