258 ARIADNE FLORENT1NA. 



21. The Delineators are the men on whom I am going to 

 give you this course of lectures. They are essentially engrav- 

 ers, an engraved line being the best means of delineation. 

 The Chiaroscurists are essentially draughtsmen with chalk, 

 charcoal, or single tints. Many of them paint, but always with 

 some effort and pain. Leonardo is the type of them ; but the 

 entire Dutch school consists of them, laboriously painting, 

 without essential genius for colour. 



The Colourists are the true painters ; and all the faultless 

 (as far, that is to say, as men's work can be so,) and consum- 

 mate masters of art belong to them. 



22. The distinction between the colourist and chiaroscurist 

 school is trenchant and absolute ; and may soon be shown you 

 so that you will never forget it. Here is a Florentine picture 

 by one of the pupils of Giotto, of very good representative 

 quality, and which the University galleries are rich in possess- 

 ing. At the distance at which I hold it, you see nothing but 

 a chequer-work of brilliant, and, as it happens, even glaring 

 colours. If you come near, you will find this patchwork re- 

 solve itself into a Visitation, and Birth of St. John ; but that 

 St. Elizabeth's red dress, and the Virgin's blue and white one, 

 and the brown posts of the door, and the blue spaces of the 

 sky, are painted in their own entirely pure colours, each shaded 

 with more powerful tints of itself, pale blue with deep blue, 

 scarlet with crimson, yellow with orange, and green with rich- 

 er green. 



The whole is therefore as much a mosaic work of brilliant 

 colour as if it were made of bits of glass. There is no effect 

 of light attempted, or so much as thought of : you don't know 

 even where the sun is ; nor have you the least notion what 

 time of day it is. The painter thinks you cannot be so super- 

 fluous as to want to know what time of day it is. 



23. Here, on the other hand, is a Dutch picture of good 

 average quality, also out of the University galleries. It repre- 

 sents a group of cattle, and a herdsman watching them. And 

 you see in an instant that the time is evening. The sun is 

 setting, and there is warm light on the landscape, the cattle, 

 and the standing figure. 





