stuffs--bricks and mortar, the grass
of the fields, the shadows of trees, and bridges and rivers, which they
call landscapes, and little figures here and there; and all this,
although it may appear good to some eyes, is in truth done without
reasonableness or art, without symmetry or proportion, without care in
selecting or rejecting, and finally, without any substance or verve; and
in spite of all this, painting in some other parts is worse than it is
in Flanders. Neither do I speak so badly of Flemish painting because it
is all bad, but because it tries to do so many things at once (each of
which alone would suffice for a great work), so that it does not do
anything really well.

Only works which are done in Italy can be called true painting, and
therefore we call good painting Italian; for if it were done so well in
another country, we should give it the name of that country or
province. As for the good painting of this country, there is nothing
more noble or devout; for with wise persons nothing causes devotion to
be remembered, or to arise, more than the difficulty of the perfection
which unites itself with and joins God; because good painting is nothing
else but a copy of the perfections of God and a reminder of His
painting. Finally, good painting is a music and a melody which intellect
only can appreciate, and with great difficulty. This painting is so rare
that few are capable of doing or attaining to it.

_Michael Angelo._

CCXIII

All Dutch painting is concave: what I mean is that it is composed of
curves described about a point determined by the pictorial interest;
circular shadows round a dominant light. Design, colouring, and lighting
fall into a concave scheme, with a strongly defined base, a retreating
ceiling, and corners rounded and converging on the centre; whence it
follows that the painting is all depth, and that it is far from the eye
to the objects represented. No type of painting leads with more certain
directness from the foreground to the background, from the frame to the
horizon. One can live in it, walk in it, see to the uttermost ends of
it; one is tempted to raise one's head to measure the distance of the
sky. Everything conspires to this illusion: the exactness of the aerial
perspective, the perfect harmony of colour and tones with the plane on
which the object is placed. The rendering of the heights of space, of
the envelope of atmosphere, of the distant effect, which absorbs this