I

VELASQUEZ

What we are all trying to do with great labour, he does at once.

_Reynolds._

CCXIX

Saw again to-day the Spanish school in the Museum,--Velasquez, a
surprising fellow! The "Hermits in a Rocky Desert" pleased me much; also
a "Dark Wood at Nightfall." He is Teniers on a large scale: his handling
is of the most sparkling kind, owing much of its dazzling effect to the
flatness of the ground it is placed upon.

The picture of "Children in Grotesque Dresses," in his painting-room, is
a surprising piece of handling. Still he would gain, and indeed does
gain, when he glazes his pictures. He makes no use of his ground; lights
and shadows are opaque. Chilliness and blackness are sometimes the
result; and often a cold blue or green prevails, requiring all his
brilliancy of touch and truth of effect to make tolerable. Velasquez,
however, may be said to be the origin of what is now doing in England.
His feeling they have caught almost without seeing his works; which
here seem to anticipate Reynolds, Romney, Raeburn, Jackson, and even Sir
Thomas Lawrence. Perhaps there is this difference: he does at once what
we do by repeated and repeated touches.

It may truly be said, that wheresoever Velasquez is admired, the
paintings of England must be acknowledged and admired with him.

_Wilkie._

CCXX

VELASQUEZ

Never did any one think less of a style or attain it more consummately.
He was far too much occupied with the divining of the qualities of light
and atmosphere that enveloped his subjects, and with stating those
truths in the most direct and poignant way to have time to spare on mere
adornments and artifices that amuse us in the work of lesser men. Every
stroke in Velasquez means something, records an observation. You never
see a splodge of light that entertains you for a moment and relapses
into _chic_ as you analyse it; even the most elusive bits of painting
like the sword-hilt in the "Admiral Pulido" are utterly just, and
observed as the light flickers and is lost over the steel shapes. No one
ever had the faculty of observing the true character of two diverse
forms at the same time as he did. If you look at any quilted sleeve you
will feel the whole texture of the material and recognise its own shape,
and yet under it and through it each nuance of muscle and arm-form
reveals itself. It is no light praise, mind you, when one says that
every touch is the record of a tireless observation--you have