Chapter Page to Paladore of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(20) Rosa (Salvator): dark, inscrutable pictures, relieved by dabs of the palette-knife. He is fond of savage scenery, broken rocks, wild caverns, blasted heaths, and so on (1615–1673).

(21) Rubens (Peter Paul). According to sir Joshua Reynolds, Rubens was “perhaps the greatest master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with his tools that ever exercised a pencil.” His excellence lay in his execution and wonderful colouring. His choice of subjects from Grecian mythology was very characteristic of him. He was renowned for the beauty and grace of his paintings of children (1577–1640).

(22) Steen (Fan): great as a genre painter. He generally painted tavern scenes; the motifs scenes; frequently eating, drinking, card-playing, etc. (1626–1679).

(23) Tintoretto (If, i.e. the little dyer; real name, Jacopo Robusti. He was called “Il Furioso” from the rapidity and recklessness of his manner of painting. His contemporaries said of him that he “used three pencils—one gold, one silver, one lead.” His magnificent painting was often spoilt by the inequality of his slovenly, careless work (1512–1594). (See Errors, p. 331.)

(24) Titian: the greatest painter of the Venetian school. A glorious colourist, great as a landscape, and magnificent as a portrait, painter. He was noted for his broad shades of divers gradations (1477–1566).

(25) Turner (R. A.): his special characteristic is scenes in a mist (1775–1851).

(26) Veronese (Paul): the most magnificent of the Venetian painters; in fact, magnificence is his great characteristic. He painted all his sacred and historical scenes as if they had happened in his own day and city, giving even the humblest the pomp and splendour which was the fashion of that time (1530–1588). (See Errors, p. 331.)

(27) Watteau (Antoine): noted for his féltes galantes, fancy-ball costumes, charming groups of ladies in sacques, and cavaliers in lace cravats and flowing hats. His exquisite fans were a great characteristic (1684–1721).

The colouring of Titian, the expression of Rubens, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, the correggioscity of Correggio, the learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Carrachi [sic], the grand contour of Angelo,…the brilliant truth of a Watteau, the touching grace of a Reynolds.—Sterne.

I have found Sarah Tytler’s book. The Old Masters and their Pictures, very helpful in preparing this list.

Painters True to Nature.

(1) A Bee. Quintin Matsys, the Dutch painter, painted a bee so well that the artist Mandyn thought it a real bee, and proceeded to brush it away with his handkerchief (1450–1529).

(2) A Cow. Myron carved a cow so true to nature that bulls mistook it for a living animal (B.C. 431). (See Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 92.)

(3) A Curtain. Parrhasios painted a curtain so admirably that even Zeuxis, the artist, mistook it for real draper (B. C. 400).

(4) A Fly. George Alexander Stevens says, in his Lectures on Heads—

I have heard of a connoisseur who was one day in an auction-room where there was an inimitable piece of painting of fruits and flowers. The connoisseur would not give his opinion of the picture till he had first examined the catalogue; and finding it was done by an Englishman, he pulled out his eye-glass. “Oh, sir,” says he, “those English fellows have no more idea of genius than a Dutch skipper has of dancing a cotillion. The dog has spoiled a fine piece of canvas; he is worse than a Harp Alley sign-post dauber. There’s no keeping, no perspective, no foreground. Why, there now, the fellow has actually attempted to