he
religion of the painter, the more pure and prevalent is the system of
his color. It will be found, in the second place, that where color
becomes a primal intention with a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it
instantly elevates him, and becomes the one sacred and saving element in
his work. The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian painters and
Rubens sometimes condescend, is a consequence of their feeling
confidence in the power of their color to keep them from falling. They
hold on by it, as by a chain let down from heaven, with one hand, though
they may sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in
the last place, it will be found that so surely as a painter is
irreligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his
coloring cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this
respect are Fra Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the one was a man
who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harbored an
impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the
colors of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a
painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold
ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent
his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror,
and their color is for the most part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as
if art had so much of eternity in it, that it must take its dye from the
close rather than the course of life:--"In such laughter the heart of
man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness."

Sec. XXXII. These are no singular instances. I know no law more severely
without exception than this of the connexion of pure color with profound
and noble thought. The late Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and
obscene in subject, are always sober in color. But the early religious
painting of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in
thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in crimson, and blue,
and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Rembrandts in brown and grey. The
builders of our great cathedrals veiled their casements and wrapped
their pillars with one robe of purple splendor. The builders of the
luxurious Renaissance left their palaces filled only with cold white
light, and in the paleness of their native stone.[54]

Sec. XXXIII. Nor does it seem difficult to discern a noble reason for this
universal law