hadows there are none,--only still softer light, to carry back the
receding forms. But interest in technicalities is lost in the nobler
sense of sweet influences. We are at peace in the presence of a peace
which passeth all understanding. We are holy in the ineffable light
of immortal holiness. We are blessed in the consciousness of complete
harmony.

Surely, none but a great painter could have achieved such success;
surely, no mere painter could thus have appealed to us.

These works we have chosen to represent the artist's power in the
direction of portraiture,--not only because of their wonderful merit as
embodiments of individualism, but to illustrate a law which has not yet
had its due influence in art, but which must be the very life of its
next revival, when painting shall be borne up until it marks the
century.

We refer to the expressional power of color,--not the conventional
significance whereby certain colors have been associated arbitrarily
with mental conditions. This last has often violated all the principles
of natural relation; yet no fact is more generally accepted than
this,--that colors, from the intensity of the primitives to the last
faint tints derived therefrom, bear fixed and demonstrable relations to
the infinite moods and phases of human life. As among themselves the
hues of the palette exist in immutable conditions of positive affinity
or repulsion, so are they all related to the soul as definitely in
harmony or in discord. There has been imperfect recognition of this at
various times in the history of painting since the age of Giotto,--the
most notable examples having occurred in the Venetian school.

But even in that golden age of art, this property of color was but
rarely perceived and called into use under the guidance of principles.
Still, the sense of the value and the harmonies of colors was so keen
among the Venetian artists, that, intuitively, subjects were chosen
which required an expression admitting of the most lavish use and
magnificent display of color.

Paul Veronese, the splendor of whose conceptions seemed ever to select
the pomp and wealth of banquets and ceremonies,--Giorgione, for whom the
world revolved in an atmosphere of golden glory,--each had a fixed ideal
of noble coloring; and it is questionable whether either ever modified
that ideal for the sake of any expressional purpose.

Titian, from whom no property or capability of color was concealed,
could not foreg