enefited, gas shedding a white cool light compared with lamplight.

The practice of painting by candlelight originated neither with
Rembrandt nor Gainsborough; in fact, we find that all academies, from
the time of Bacio Bandinelli to our own, were always opened at night,
both for the purposes of drawing and painting. But these effects
generally remain where they originated, and are seldom taken advantage
of without the walls, the figure alone being considered, without
reference to the background. Tintoret was one of the first to apply the
principles to his practice. Fuseli, speaking of chiaro-scuro, says--"The
nocturnal studies of Tintoret, from models and artificial groups, have
been celebrated; those prepared in wax or clay he arranged, raised,
suspended, to produce masses, foreshortening, and effect. It was thence
he acquired that decision of chiaro-scuro, unknown to more expanded
daylight, by which he divided his bodies, and those wings of obscurity
and light by which he separated the groups of his composition;
though the mellowness of his eye nearly always instructed him to
connect the two extremes by something that partook of both, as the
extremes themselves by the reflexes with the background or the
scenery. The general rapidity of his process, by which he baffled his
competitors, and often overwhelmed himself, did not, indeed, always
permit him to attend deliberately to this principle, and often hurried
him into an abuse of practice which in the lights turned breadth into
mannered or insipid flatness; and in the shadows into a total extinction
of parts. Of all this he has in the schools of San Rollo and Marco given
the most unquestionable instances--'The Resurrection of Christ,' and
'The Massacre of the Innocents,' comprehend every charm by which
chiaro-scuro fascinates its votaries. In the vision, dewy dawn melts
into deep but pellucid shade, itself sent or reflected by celestial
splendour and angelic hues; whilst in the infant massacre of Bethlehem,
alternate sheets of stormy light and agitated gloom dash horror on the
astonished eye."

Rembrandt, like Tintoret, never destroyed the effective character
of his chiaro-scuro by the addition of his colour, but made it a
main contributor to the general character of the subject; hence that
undisturbed and engulphing breadth which pervades his works. Fuseli,
in the same lecture, defends the Venetian school from being considered
as the "ornamental school." After selec