me time clear." It should rather be
defined to be light in shadow; but it will be difficult to establish
any other sense for it than the disposition of the light and shade in
a picture. The inventor of it, for practical use, was Leonardo da
Vinci. Of this _chiaroscuro_ he says: "It is this, in fine, against
which so many renowned Italian masters have sinned, but in which the
immortal Correggio is so eminently distinguished, and which proves
how they err who have named Titian the prince of colourists. For how
much soever he may possess in a supreme degree very many other parts
of colouring, he has so misunderstood this one in his general harmony,
that his grounds are rarely in agreement with the rest of his picture,
and are often all black. His _Venus_, in the Dresden gallery, and his
_Ecce Homo_, in that of Vienna, two of his most renowned pictures but
especially the latter, present striking proofs, among very many
others, of the correctness of my opinion on this great colourist."

Those who object, as some venture to do, to Titian's colour,
especially in his backgrounds, we believe overlook his intention, and
are not aware how much what they consider defects affect the whole.
Objections have been made to the background of the _Peter Martyr_,
without considering how appropriate the colouring is to the subject.
There are some just observations on the necessity of transparency,
which should not be confined to shadows and demi-tints, "which cannot
do without it." It has been said that Titian and Correggio glazed over
every part of the picture, thereby giving even the lights a sort of
transparency. Of harmony of colour, he says, "Under the pencil of an
intelligent artist, local colours, even the least agreeable, and those
which have the least affinity among themselves, may become very
agreeable to the eye, and contribute powerfully to the harmony of the
picture through the interposition of some other colour, as in music
discordant tones are happily united by means of intermediate ones."
The translator appends to this a note in which he quotes from Mengs,
that "The three primary colours being red, blue, and yellow, when any
one of them is prominently used, it should be accompanied by one which
unites the _other two_. Thus, if pure red be used, it should be
accompanied by green, which is a compound of blue and yellow. This
compound colour is called the contrasting colour, and is always used
sparingly. But the harmonizing colo