by man. In placid strength, and subtlest science, unsurpassed;--in sweet
felicity, incomparable.

150. If you truly want to know what good work of painter's hand is,
study those two pictures from side to side, and miss no inch of them
(you will hardly, eventually, be inclined to miss one): in some respects
there is no execution like it; none so open in the magic. For the work
of other great men is hidden in its wonderfulness--you cannot see how it
was done. But in Sir Joshua's there is no mystery: it is all amazement.
No question but that the touch was so laid; only that it _could_ have
been so laid, is a marvel forever. So also there is no painting so
majestic in sweetness. He is lily-sceptered: his power blossoms, but
burdens not. All other men of equal dignity paint more slowly; all
others of equal force paint less lightly. Tintoret lays his line like a
king marking the boundaries of conquered lands; but Sir Joshua leaves it
as a summer wind its trace on a lake; he could have painted on a silken
veil, where it fell free, and not bent it.

151. Such at least is his touch when it is life that he paints: for
things lifeless he has a severer hand. If you examine that picture of
the _Graces_ you will find it reverses all the ordinary ideas of
expedient treatment. By other men flesh is firmly painted, but
accessories lightly. Sir Joshua paints accessories firmly,[23] flesh
lightly;--nay, flesh not at all, but spirit. The wreath of flowers he
feels to be material; and gleam by gleam strikes fearlessly the silver
and violet leaves out of the darkness. But the three maidens are less
substantial than rose petals. No flushed nor frosted tissue that ever
faded in night wind is so tender as they; no hue may reach, no line
measure, what is in them so gracious and so fair. Let the hand move
softly--itself as a spirit; for this is Life, of which it touches the
imagery.

152. "And yet----" Yes: you do well to pause. There is a "yet" to be
thought of. I did not bring you to these pictures to see wonderful work
merely, or womanly beauty merely. I brought you chiefly to look at that
Madonna, believing that you might remember other Madonnas, unlike her;
and might think it desirable to consider wherein the difference
lay:--other Madonnas not by Sir Joshua, who painted Madonnas but seldom.
Who perhaps, if truth must be told, painted them never: for surely this
dearest pet of an English girl, with the little curl of lovely hair
under h