neatness, high finishing, and
gaudy corlouring, to the truth, simplicity, and unity of nature.'

Before, neatness and high finishing were supposed to belong exclusively
to the littleness of nature, but here truth, simplicity, and unity are
her characteristics. Soon after, Sir Joshua says: 'I should be sorry
if what has been said should be understood to have any tendency to
encourage that carelessness which leaves work in an unfinished state. I
commend nothing for the want of exactness; I mean to point out that
kind of exactness which is the best, and which is alone truly to be so
esteemed.' This Sir Joshua has already told us consists in getting above
'all particularities and details of every kind.' Once more we find it
stated that--

'It is in vain to attend to the variation of tints, if in that attention
the general hue of flesh is lost; or to finish ever so minutely the
parts, if the masses are not observed, or the whole not well put
together.'

Nothing can be truer; but why always suppose the two things at variance
with each other?

'Titian's manner was then new to the world, but that unshaken truth on
which it is founded has fixed it as a model to all succeeding painters;
and those who will examine into the artifice will find it to consist in
the power of generalising, and in the shortness and simplicity of the
means employed.'

Titian's real excellence consisted in the power of generalising and of
_individualising_ at the same time: if it wore merely the former, it
would be difficult to account for the error immediately after pointed
out by Sir Joshua. He says in the very next paragraph:

'Many artists, as Vasari likewise observes, have ignorantly imagined
they are imitating the manner of Titian when they leave their colours
rough and neglect the detail; but not possessing the principles on which
he wrought, they have produced what he calls _goffe pitture_--absurd,
foolish pictures.'

Many artists have also imagined they were following the directions of
Sir Joshua when they did the same thing, that is, neglected the detail,
and produced the same results--vapid generalities, absurd, foolish
pictures.

I will only give two short passages more, and have done with this
part of the subject. I am anxious to confront Sir Joshua with his own
authority:

'The advantage of this method of considering objects (as a whole) is
what I wish now more particularly to enforce. At the same time I do
not forget that a pai