; only, it is always to
be observed that impetuosity or rudeness of hand is not
necessarily--and, if imaginative, is never--carelessness. In the two
landscapes at the end of the Scuola di San Rocco, Tintoret has drawn
several large tree trunks with two strokes of his brush--one for the
dark, and another for the light side; and the large rock at the foot
of the picture of the Temptation is painted with a few detached
touches of gray over a flat brown ground; but the touches of the
tree-trunks have been followed by the mind as they went down with
the most painful intensity through their every undulation; and the
few gray strokes on the stone are so considered that a better stone
cone could not be painted if we took a month to it: and I suppose,
generally, it would be utterly impossible to give an example of
execution in which less was left to accident, or in which more care
was concentrated in every stroke, than the seemingly regardless and
impetuous handling of this painter.

On the habit of both Tintoret and Michael Angelo to work straight
forward from the block and on the canvas, without study or model, it
is needless to insist; for though this is one of the most amazing
proofs of their imaginative power, it is a dangerous precedent. No
mode of execution ought ever to be taught to a young artist as
better than another; he ought to understand the truth of what he has
to do, felicitous execution will follow as a matter of course; and
if he feels himself capable of getting at the right at once, he will
naturally do so without reference to precedent. He ought to hold
always that his duty is to attain the highest result he can,--but
that no one has any business with the means or time he has taken. If
it can be done quickly, let it be so done; if not, let it be done at
any rate. For knowing his way he is answerable, and therefore must
not walk _doubtingly_; but no one can blame him for walking
_cautiously_, if the way be a narrow one, with a slip on each side.
He may pause, but he must not hesitate,--and tremble, but must not
vacillate.

[69] That which we know of the lives of M. Angelo and Tintoret is
eminently illustrative of this temper.

CHAPTER IV.

OF IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE.

Sec. 1. Imagination contemplative is not part of th