225 
PAIN 
hauftible fource of beauties of that kind. Angels and 
feraphs, miraculous apparitions of faints, and the liberty 
generally allowed to group together perfonages who lived at 
thediftanceof feveral centuries from each other, un (hackled 
the hands of the painter, enlarged his canvas, and placed 
his eafel above the clouds. Hence that wonderful enthu- 
fiafm which fired his mind, taught his pencil to fweep in 
bold ftrokes acrofs the pannel, and unveiled to him thole 
heavenly features which are fuppofed to be enlightened 
and blelfed with the reflection of the ineffable rays which 
dmanate from God himfelf. 
Raphael’s laft and molt beautiful picture is the cele¬ 
brated Transfiguration, which was expofed at the head of 
his coffin, to give an impreflive idea of the lofs the world 
had jult experienced by the death of lo great a genius. A 
copy of this chef d’ceuvre, drawn under the eye of Ra¬ 
phael, and painted after his death by Julio Romano, is 
now at Dul wich-college, as an altar-piece ; and is the 
more precious, that the original, tranfported from Rome 
to Paris, has materially fuffered under the hands of un- 
Ikilful cleaners. 
A hiltory of the fchools is nothing more than a hiftory 
of the painters who founded them. In thole two which 
we have already given, Michael Angelo and Raphael 
come readily forward to claim our attention. We have 
allready compared the former with Leonardo da Vinci ; 
and we cannot better conclude this account than by con- 
trailing him with Raphael. This we lhali do in the words 
of fir Jolliua Reynolds. “ If we put thofe great artills 
(fays he) in a light of comparifon with each other, Ra¬ 
phael had more talle and fancy, Michael Angelo more 
genius and imagination. The one excelled in beauty, 
the other in energy. Michael Angelo has more of the 
poetical in operation ; his ideas are vail and fublime ; his 
people are a fuperior order of beings; there is nothing 
about them, nothing in the air of their ablions, or their 
attitudes, or the llyle and cad of their limbs or features, 
that puts one in mind of their belonging to our fpecies. 
Raphael’s imagination is not fo elevated ; his figures are 
not fo much disjointed from our own diminutive race of 
beings, though his ideas are chafte, noble, and of great 
conformity to their fubjebl. Michael Angelo’s works 
have a ftrong, peculiar, and marked, character ; they feem 
to proceed from his own mind entirely; and that mind 
fo rich and abundant, that he never needed, or feemed 
to difdain, to look abroad for foreign help. • Raphael’s 
materials are generally borrowed, though the noble ftruc- 
ture is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary 
man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majelty, of his 
characters; his judicious contrivance of compofition, 
correblnefs of drawing, purity of talle, and the Ikilful 
accommodation of other men’s conceptions to his own 
purpofe.” 
Venetian School. —Whillt painting was purfued at 
Florence in its higher principles, and thence tranlplanted 
pure to Rome, to adorn the pontifical palaces, &c.of the 
imperial city, its more alluring, though lefs folid, 
charms, were cultivated at Venice ; where colour occu¬ 
pied the attention of the artills, and repaid it with her 
moll engaging fafcinations. Among thofe artills, Gior¬ 
gione del Caftel Franco, born in 1477, has the reputation 
of having begun that fyllem of colouring, which his early 
death alone prevented him from carrying to perfection. 
Had the period of his exiitence been lengthened, it is 
probable that Titian, who adopted his llyle, would not 
have flood fo completely alone, as he now does, at the 
head of the Venetian fchool. In character and in grace, 
Giorgione, in fome of the few works which he has left, 
has evidently furpalfed him. Except in the adaptations 
of it to exalted fubjeCts, and an admixture of a certain 
degree of grandeur and purity in defign, which was ef- 
feCfed by Titian, the Venetian llyle of art has an equal 
fupporter in Giacomo Robulli, called il Tintoretto; who, 
too free to be correCl, and too daring to be chafte, held 
the pencil with a vigour of colour and execution worthy 
VOL. XVIII. No. 1237. 
T I N G. 
of being added to the fublimity of Michael Angelo in 
defign. Unfortunately, to the delights of execution and 
furface, he facrificed character, expreffion, and propriety ; 
and the world ought to regard him as the founder of the 
ornamental llyle, rather than Titian ; whofe belt works 
hold a middle rank between Tintoretto and Michael 
Angelo, and are of too ferious a character to merit that 
appellation. It was however his procefs of colouring 
which guided the hand of Tintoretto, and alfo that of 
Paulo Veronefe, in eftablilhing the fuccefs of the Venetian 
fchool. Paduanino, the elder and younger Palma, Por- 
denone, the Balkans, and many others, upheld the fyllem 
for a time, but not with equal powers. 
The artills in the Florentine and Roman fchools 
painted moll commonly in water-colours or in frefco ; 
and, in the exercife of their profeffion, infteadof nature, 
they finifhed their works from their firft fketches. Titian 
painted in oil, and finifhed from the objeCts in nature; 
and this practice, joined to his exquifite talents, gave 
the greatell truth to his colours. His being a portrait- 
painter was alfo of advantage to him as a colouriil. In 
this department, he was accullomed to the colours of na¬ 
ture in carnations and draperies. But the colours of his 
paintings are fo mingled together, as to give no idea of 
the colours on his pallet ; which diftinguilhes him from 
Rubens, who placed his colours one at the fide of ano¬ 
ther. It is impoffible to fay, on the narroweft infpeCtion, 
with what colours he produced his tints. This praClice, 
which enabled him to imitate fo exaClly the colours of 
nature, gives a marked diftinClion to his manner of 
painting. In the examination of his works, the critics 
lofe an ordinary fource of pleafure, which arifes from 
marking the freedom of hand ; but they may confole them- 
felves with the natural and exquifite touches of this ar- 
tift. He is of hillorical painters one of thofe who have 
bell fucceeded in landfcape. His fituations are well chofen; 
his trees are varied in their forms, and their foliage well 
conceived. He had a cuftorn of reprefenting fome re¬ 
markable appearance in his landfcapes to render them more 
llriking. 
There is much ingenuity in Goethe’s remarks on the 
caufes of the tranlparent colouring of the Venetian 
painters. The eye, he fays with truth, is formed by the 
objedls to which it is accullomed ; and here every thing 
is brilliant. When he law the gondoliers dreffed in gay 
colours, let off by the vivid green furface of the water, 
and by the clear Iky, he perceived in thefe objeds the 
character of the pictures of the Venetian fchool. The 
funlhine brought out the colouring with dazzling bril¬ 
liancy, and the lhadows were illuminated by the light re- 
fleded from the water ; all was light in light. 
In the year 1798, Mr. Sheldrake, of the Strand, pre- 
fented to the Society of Arts a Differtation on Oil-paint¬ 
ing, as pradifed in the ancient Venetian School. From 
this we (hall make a few extracts. 
“ The method of painting pradifed in the Venetian 
fchool, I conceive to have been as follows : The cloth 
w’as primed with colours in diftemper, of a brownilhhue, 
fuch as would properly enter into the darkeft parts of the 
picture: the moll tranfparent colours are the propereft. 
I believe umber was moll generally ufed, broken with red, 
yellow, or blue, according to the tint intended to be 
produced, and diluted with chalk, or whiting, to the 
proper degree of ftrength. Upon the ground fo prepared, 
the fubjed was corredly drawn with umber, pure, or 
mixed with lake, blue, or black : and with the fame co¬ 
lours thofe lhadows that were darker than the ground 
were then painted in. The artill then painted the lights 
with pure white, in a folid body, where the light was 
brighteft, or where the full effedof colour was to be pro¬ 
duced ; and, where the demi-tints were afterwards to be, 
(bumbling it thinner by degrees, till it united with the 
lhadows. In this manner, the chiaro-fcuro was finilhed as 
much as poffible, and the local colour of every objedinthe 
pidure glazed over it. All the colours ufed in this part 
3 M of 
