Pisa
have been colored, the irises of the eyes painted dark, and the hair
gilded, as also I think the Madonna in St^a. Maria della Spina; the
eyes have been painted in the sculptures of Orcagna in Or San Michele,
but it looks like a remnant of barbarism, (compare the pulpit of Guida
da Como, in the church of San Bartolomeo at Pistoja,) and I have never
seen color on any solid forms, that did not, to my mind, neutralize all
other power; the porcelains of Luca della Robbia are painful examples,
and in lower art, Florentine mosaic in relief; gilding is more
admissible, and tells sometimes sweetly upon figures of quaint design,
as on the pulpit of St^a. Maria Novella, while it spoils the classical
ornaments of the mouldings. But the truest grandeur of sculpture I
believe to be in the white form; something of this feeling may be owing
to the difficulty, or rather the immediately, of obtaining truly noble
color upon it, but if we could color the Elgin marbles with the flesh
tint of Giorgione, I had rather not have it done.

Sec. 10. Of color without form.

Color, without form, is less frequently obtainable, and it may be
doubted whether it be desirable: yet I think that to the full enjoyment
of it, a certain abandonment of form is necessary; sometimes by reducing
it to the shapeless glitter of the gem, as often Tintoret and Bassano;
sometimes by loss of outline and blending of parts, as Turner; sometimes
by flatness of mass, as often Giorgione and Titian. How far it is
possible for the painter to represent those mountains of Shelley as the
poet sees them, "mingling _their flames_ with twilight," I cannot say;
but my impression is, that there is no true abstract mode of
considering color; and that all the loss of form in the works of Titian
or Turner, is not ideal, but the representation of the natural
conditions under which bright color is seen; for form is always in a
measure lost by nature herself when color is very vivid.

Sec. 11. Or of both without texture.

Again, there is capability of representing the essential character,
form, and color of an object, without external texture. On this point
much has been said by Reynolds and others, and it is, indeed, perhaps
the most unfailing characteristic of great manner in painting. Compare a
dog of Edwin Landseer with a dog of Paul Veronese. In the first, the
outward texture is wrought out with exquisite dexterity of handling, and
minute attention to all the accidents of