he 'Valentine' I may say, though to some it may seem an
extravagance, I have never been able to invent the terms that would
sufficiently express my admiration of that picture,--I mean, of its
color; though as a whole it is admirable for its composition, for the
fewness of the objects admitted, for the simplicity and naturalness of
the arrangement. But the charm is in the color of the flesh, of the
head, of the two hands. The subject is a young woman reading a letter,
holding the open letter with both the hands. The art can go no further,
nor as I believe has it ever gone any further. Some pigments or
artifices were unfortunately used, which have caused the surface to
crack, and which require the picture now to be looked at at a further
remove than the work on its own account needs or requires; it even
demands a nearer approach, in order to be well seen, than these cracks
will permit. But these accidental blemishes do not materially interfere
with the appreciation and enjoyment of the picture. It has what I
conceive to be that most rare merit,--it has the same universal hue of
nature and truth in both the shadows and the lights which Nature has,
but _Art_ almost never, and which is the great cross to the artist. The
great defect and the great difficulty, in imitating the hues of flesh,
lies in the shadows and the half-shadows. You will often observe in
otherwise excellent works of the most admirable masters, that, the
moment their pencil passes to the shadows of the flesh, especially the
half-shadows, truth, though not always a certain beauty, forsakes them.
The shadows are true in their degree of dark, but false in tone and hue.
They are true shadows, but not true flesh. You see the form of a face,
neck, arm, hand in shadow, but not flesh in shade; and were that portion
of the form sundered from its connection with the body, it could never
be told, by its color alone, what it was designed to be. Allston's
wonderful merit is, (and it was Titian's,) that the hue of life and
flesh is the same in the shadow as in the light. It is not only shadow
or dark, but it is flesh in shadow. The shadows of most artists, even
very distinguished ones, are green, or brown, or black, or lead color,
and have some strong and decided tint other than that of flesh. The
difficulty with most seems to have been so insuperable, that they cut
the knot at a single blow, and surrendered the shadows of the flesh, as
an impossibility, to green or brown