he maintained the credit of a thoroughly
domestic, soundly natured, and vigorously wholesome man.

[Footnote 223: This tradition of Guido's childhood I give for what it is
worth, from Malvasia, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 53. In after life, beside
being piously addicted to Madonna-worship, he had a great dread of women
in general and witches in particular. What some will call spiritual,
others effeminate, in his mature work, may be due to the temperament
thus indicated.]

I have thought it well thus to preface what I have to say about these
masters, partly because critics of the modern stamp, trusting more to
their subjective impressions than to authoritative records, have painted
the moral characters of Guido and Domenichino in lurid colors, and also
because there is certainly something in their work which leaves a
painful memory of unhealthy sentiment, impassiveness to pain, and
polished carnalism on the mind. It may incidentally be recorded that
Lodovico Caracci, Guido Reni, and Francesco Albani are all of them, on
very good authority, reported to have been even prudishly modest in
their use of female models. They never permitted a woman to strip
entirely, and Guido carried his reserve to such a pitch that he
preferred to leave his studio door open while drawing from a woman.[224]
Malevolence might suggest that this was only part and parcel of
post-Tridentine hypocrisy; and probably there is truth in the
suggestion. I certainly do not reckon such solicitous respect for
garments entirely to their credit. But it helps us to understand the
eccentric compound of sentiment, sensuality, piety, and uneasy morality
which distinguished the age, and which is continually perplexing the
student of its art.

[Footnote 224: Malvasia, _op. cit._ p. 53, p. 178. The latter passage is
preceded by a discussion of the nude in art which shows how Malvasia had
imbibed Tridentine morality in the middle of Italy glowing with
Renaissance masterpieces.]

Of these three men, Guido was the most genially endowed. He alone
derived a true spark from the previous age of inspiration. He wearies us
indeed with his effeminacy, and with the reiteration of a physical type
sentimentalized from the head and bust of Niobe. But thoughts of real
originality and grace not seldom visited his meditations; and he alone
deserved the name of colorist among the painters I have as yet ascribed
to the Bolognese School.[225] Guido affected a cool harmony of blue,
whit