a little bundle of blue, red, and yellow rays, which, while combined, are not to be distinguished one from another, and form that kind of light called white; so that white is not a colour per se, as the learned Da Vinci (so far, it seems, the precursor of Newton), expressly affirms, but an assemblage of colours. Now, these colours, which compose light, although immutable in themselves, and endued with various qualities, are continually, however, separating from each other in their reflection from, and passage through other substances, and thus become manifest to the eye. Grass, for example, reflects only green rays, or rather reflects green rays in greater number than it does those of any other colour; one kind of wine transmits red rays, and another yellowish rays; and from this kind of separation arises that variety of colours with which nature has diversified her various productions. Man, too, has contrived to separate the rays of light, by making a portion of the sun's beams pass through a glass prism; for, after passing through it they appear divided into three pure and primitive colours, placed in succession one by the other, like so many colours on a painter's pallet.

Although a knowledge of the science of optics may be of great service to a painter, yet the pictures of the best colourists are, it is universally allowed, the books in which a young painter must chiefly look for the rules of colouring; that is, of that branch of painting which contributes so much to express the beauty of objects, and is so requisite to represent them as what they really are. Giorgione and Titian seem to have discovered circumstances in nature which others have entirely overlooked; and the last in particular has been happy enough to express them with a pencil as delicate as his eye was quick and piercing. In his works we behold that sweetness of colouring which is produced by union; that beauty which is consistent with truth and all the insensible transmutations, all the soft transitions, in a word all the pleasing modulations of tints and colours. When a young painter has, by close application, acquired from Titian, whom he can never sufficiently dwell upon, that art which, of all painters, he has best contrived to hide, he would do well to turn to Bassano and Paolo, on account of the beauty, boldness, and

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elegance of their touches. That richness, softness, and freshness of colouring, for which the Lombard school is so justly celebrated, may likewise be of great service to him; nor will he reap less benefit by studying the principles and practice of the Flemish school, which, chiefly by means of her varnishes, has contrived to give a most enchanting lustre and transparency to her colours.

But from whatever pictures a young painter may choose to study the art of colouring, he must take care that they are well preserved. There are very few pieces which have not suffered more or less by the length, not to say the injuries, of time; and perhaps that precious patina, which years alone can impart to paintings, is in some measure akin to that other kind which ages alone impart to medals; inasmuch, as by giving testimony to their antiquity, it renders them proportionably beautiful in the superstitious eyes of the learned. It must indeed be allowed that if, on the one hand, this patina bestows, as it really does, an extraordinary degree of harmony upon the colours of a picture, and destroys, or at least greatly lessens, their original rawness, it, on the other hand, equally impairs the freshness and life of them. A piece seen many years after it has been painted, appears much as it would do, immediately after painting, behind a dull glass. It is no idle opinion, that Paolo Veronese, attentive above all things to the beauty of his colours, and what is called strepito, left entirely to time the care of harmonising them perfectly, and (as we may say) mellowing them. But most of the old masters took that task upon themselves; and never exposed their works to the eyes of the public, until they had ripened and finished them with their own hands. And who can say whether the Christ of Moneta, or the Nativity of Bassano, have been more improved or injured (if we may so speak) by the touchings and retouchings of time, in the course of more than two centuries? It is indeed impossible to be determined; but the studious pupil may make himself ample amends for any injuries which his originals may have received from the hands of time, by turning to truth, and to nature, which never grows old, but constantly retains its primitive flower of youth, and was itself the model of the

models before him. As soon, therefore, as a young painter has laid a proper foundation for good colouring, by studying the best masters, he should turn all his thoughts to truth and nature. And it would perhaps be well worth while to have, in the academies of painting, models for colouring as well as designing; that as from the one the pupils learn to give their due proportion to the several members and muscles, they may learn from the other to make their carnations rich and warm, and faithfully copy the different local hues which appear quite distinct in the different parts of a fine body. To illustrate still farther the use of such a model, let us suppose it placed in different lights; now in that of the sun, now in that of the sky, and now again in that of a lamp or candle; one time placed in the shade, and another in a reflected light: hence the pupil may learn all the different effects of the complexion in different circumstances, whether the livid, the lucid, or transparent; and, above all, that variety of tints and half-tints, occasioned in the colour of the skin by the epidermis having the bones immediately under it in some places, and in others a greater or less number of blood-vessels or quantity of fat. An artist, who had long studied such a model, would run no risk of degrading the beauties of nature, by any particularity of style, or of giving into that preposterous fulness and floridness of colouring, which is at present so much the taste; he would not feed his figures with roses, as an ancient painter of Greece shrewdly expressed it. What statues are in design, nature is in colouring; the fountain head of that perfection to which every artist, ambitious to excel, should constantly aspire : and, accordingly, the Flemish painters, in consequence of their aiming solely to copy nature, are in colouring as excellent as they are commonly awkward in design. A good model for the tone of colours, and the gradation of shades, is furnished by means of the camera-obscura.

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We form a general idea of the various effects of reflections. from the following examples. If a blue be reflected on a yellow, the latter becomes greenish; if on a red, the red becomes purple ; and so on through a variety of combinations. As the white is of a nature to receive all the colours, and to be tinged with that

of each reflection, the painter must be careful how his carnations may be affected by the several reflections.

In the present inquiry it has been our chief aim to enforce such arguments as are calculated to draw the attention of the reader to the legitimate end of the art. That, whilst the eye is charmed with beautiful forms, the magic of chiaro-scuro, and the richness and harmony of colours, the due expression of the subject of a piece may be attained, it were fully to deny this union, indeed, constitutes the perfection of painting, which should convey, like fine writing, truths to the mind, in language at once the most forcible and beautiful; but an attempt to point out the means by which this delight may be conveyed to the sight, would necessarily require a minute investigation of all the different modes which it is in the power of the painter to adopt in the executive departments of his art; and consequently lead us, with perhaps, after all, little prospect of success, far beyond the limits we are obliged to prescribe to ourselves.

Simplicity with variety, inequality of parts with union in the whole, are, perhaps, the basis of all those effects in painting, which give pleasure to the sight. As in a composition one group, or one figure, should strike the eye with superiority over the secondary groups, or other objects in the picture; so there should be in a picture one principal mass of light, which, however connected with others, should still predominate; and for the same reason no two colours should have equal sway in the same picture : as we are at liberty to give the chief group or figure of the composition that situation which we judge most appropriate; so there is no rule by which we are obliged to place the principal light in any one given part of the picture. In clair-obscure, an inequality of parts, a subordination of several small masses to one large one, never fails to produce richness and beauty of effect; and thus, in composition, a similar richness and beauty are the result of an opposition of several small bodies or parts, to one large and simple; and in the same manner, from an arrangement of several small masses of colour in the vicinity of one large mass, the latter seems enriched, and to acquire additional consequence and beauty.

As by the addition of smaller masses of light, connected with the principal mass, that mass acquires at once greater breadth and influence, so the unity of action in a composition is in many cases powerfully augmented by a repetition of nearly the same action in two or three of the accessorial figures arranged together, one nevertheless being principal: this was the frequent custom of Raffaelle, has its foundation in nature, where similar sentiments most frequently excite similar outward demonstrations, and never fails, if judiciously managed, to produce its effect.

The doctrine of contrasts is equally applicable to composition, to clair-obscure, and to colouring. As in composition the too frequent contrast of lines, or of back to front figures, is destructive of simplicity and force of expression; so the inordinate and frequent introduction of strong oppositions of lights and shadows, or of colours, produces a spotty and confused appearance, wholly subversive of breadth and grandeur of effect: the moderate and judicious use of contrasts is of the greatest use; it gives a zest to the picture, and is like the discord in music, which sheds additional sweetness on the full harmony which succeeds it.

It will be easily perceived, that to accomplish all these objects, is by no means an easy task.

In some an inclination to pursue the arts appears at a very early period of life, and it is often difficult to ascertain the circumstance which gave that particular impulse to the mind; though there must always be some accidental circumstance, not depending upon ourselves, that creates in us that desire.

When a boy is possessed of good talents, and has so strong a passion for the arts, that scarcely anything can restrain him, there can be little fear of his doing well, if suffered to follow the bent of his inclination; but without this nothing should induce him to engage in a profession of so arduous a nature, and which requires such unwearied application. He may learn to draw the correct outlines of buildings, and other regular objects by the rules of

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