tal
criticism; with him the appearance of form and colour, acted upon by
light, the relative values of which flesh and draperies consist with
reference to the surrounding medium, all this becomes so evident a
preoccupation and a basis for decorative effects, as to give certain of
his works an almost startling air of being modern. But this tendency
comes to nothing: the men of the sixteenth century appear scarcely to
have perceived wherein lay the true excellence of this "Andrea senza
errori," deeming him essentially the artist of linear perfection; while
the innovations of Correggio in the way of showing the relations of
flesh tones and light ended in the mere coarse gala illuminations in
which his successors made their seraphs plunge and sprawl. There was too
much to be done, good and bad, in the way of mere linear form and mere
colour; and as art of mere linear form and colour, indifferent of all
else, did the art of the Italian Renaissance run to seed.

I said at the beginning of this paper that the degree to which any art
is strictly idealistic, can be measured by the terms which it will make
with portrait. For as portrait is due to the desire to represent a
person quite apart from that person affording material for decoration,
it is evident that only the art which can call in the assistance of
decorative materials, independent of the represented individual, can
possibly make a beautiful picture out of an ugly man; while the art
which deals only with such visible peculiarities as are inherent in the
individual, has no kind of outlet, is cornered, and can make of a
repulsive original only a repulsive picture. The analogy to this we have
already noticed in sculpture: antique sculpture, considering only the
linear bosses which existed equally in the living man and in the statue,
could not afford to represent plain people; while Renaissance sculpture,
extracting a large amount of beauty out of combinations of surface and
light, was able, as long as it could arrange such an artificial
combination, to dispense with great perfection in the model. Nay, if we
except Renaissance statuary as a kind of separate art, we may say that
this independence of the object portrayed is a kind of analytic test,
enabling us to judge at a glance, and by the degree of independence from
the model, the degree to which any art is removed from the mere line and
boss of antique sculpture. In the statue standing free in any light that
may chance t