ansparent color were put over it:
red, frequently, we believe, by Titian, before the brown shadows--yellow
sometimes by Rubens:--whatever warm tone might be chosen for the key of
the composition, and for the support of its grays, depended for its own
value upon the white gesso beneath; nor can any system of color be
ultimately successful which excludes it. Noble arrangement, choice, and
relation of color, will indeed redeem and recommend the falsest system:
our own Reynolds, and recently Turner, furnish magnificent examples of
the power attainable by colorists of high caliber, after the light
ground is lost--(we cannot agree with Mr. Eastlake in thinking the
practice of painting first in white and black, with cool reds only,
"equivalent to its preservation"):--but in the works of both, diminished
splendor and sacrificed durability attest and punish the neglect of the
best resources of their art.

135. We have stated, though briefly, the major part of the data which
recent research has furnished respecting the early colorists; enough,
certainly, to remove all theoretical obstacles to the attainment of a
perfection equal to theirs. A few carefully conducted experiments, with
the efficient aids of modern chemistry, would probably put us in
possession of an amber varnish, if indeed this be necessary, at least
not inferior to that which they employed; the rest of their materials
are already in our hands, soliciting only such care in their preparation
as it ought, we think, to be no irksome duty to bestow. Yet we are not
sanguine of the immediate result. Mr. Eastlake has done his duty
excellently; but it is hardly to be expected that, after being long in
possession of means which we could apply to no profit, the knowledge
that the greatest men possessed no better, should at once urge to
emulation and gift with strength. We believe that some consciousness of
their true position already existed in the minds of many living artists;
example had at least been given by two of our Academicians, Mr. Mulready
and Mr. Etty, of a splendor based on the Flemish system, and consistent,
certainly, in the first case, with a high degree of permanence; while
the main direction of artistic and public sympathy to works of a
character altogether opposed to theirs, showed fatally how far more
perceptible and appreciable to our present instincts is the mechanism of
handling than the melody of hue. Indeed we firmly believe, that of all
powers of enj