The Exhibition of Miniatures at South Kensington. 91 



some of those I liave described above, either in the young or 

 mature state. 



In conclusion, I may recommend the study of this inte- 

 resting family to the readers of the Intellectual Obseevee, as 

 being one which will apmly repay them for their trouble, and 

 which may result in giving- us further information as to the 

 number of species which may fairly be supposed to represent 

 this family in the British Isles.* 



THE EXHIBITION OF MINIATUBES AT SOUTH 



KENSINGTON. 



BY W. M. EOSSETTI. 



The art of miniature -painting is one of the processes of water- 

 colour art, differing from the ordinary processes in proportion 

 to the small scale of its productions. The word " miniature," ' 

 which has come to mean "diminutive," or "small/'' appears, 

 indeed, to have had originally no such signification, but to 

 spring from the Latin minium, or white-lead, the pigment 

 mostly used in the early book-paintings and initial -de signs 

 called likewise lc miniatures/' but now more commonly " illu- 

 minations/' But, however this may be, positively or com- 

 paratively small size is an essential of miniature-painting, as 

 we now apply the term; and some modification in artistic 

 handling is the needful consequence. The colours, instead of 

 being washed in, or laid one over the surface of another, have 

 to be dotted or streaked on with the point of the brush, or, in 

 the studio phrase, " stippled/' or " hatched." Some minia- 

 tures are executed entirely on this plan ; in others, it is 

 confined chiefly to the flesh-painting. As in most other direc- 

 tions, however, modern intolerance of the restrictions proper 

 to particular forms of art has transgressed the limits of size 

 natural to miniatures; and, some quarter of a century ago, a 

 fashion, almost unexampled till then, arose of painting fair- 

 sized figures, or largeish half-figures, under the name of 

 "miniatures." Now this fashion has almost gone out again, 

 and for a too conclusive reason — miniature-painting has itself 

 almost gone out, hustled off the field by the ease, the semi- 

 infallibility, and the cheapness, of photography. It tends fast 

 to becoming a lost art, and will be absolutely lost in a few 



* Some of the figures which, illustrate this article are copied from the late 

 Moquin Tandon's Monographie de la Famille des Hirudinees. Paris, 1846. They 

 will facilitate identification, being good representations ; the other figures were 

 originally drawn from specimens. 



