Sir John Millais is certainly right in his estimate of strong and even
bright colour, but it seems to me that he is mistaken in believing that
the colour of the Venetians was ever crude, or that time will ever turn
white into colour. The colour of the best-preserved pictures by Titian
shows a marked distinction between light flesh tones and white drapery.
This is most distinctly seen in the small "Noli Me Tangere" in our
National Gallery, in the so-called "Venus" of the Tribune and in the
"Flora" of the Uffizi, both in Florence, and in Bronzino's "All is
Vanity," also in the National Gallery. In the last-named picture, for
example, the colour is as crude and the surface as bare of mystery as if
it had been painted yesterday. As a matter of fact, white unquestionably
tones down, but never becomes colour; indeed, under favourable
conditions, and having due regard to what is underneath, it changes very
little. In the "Noli Me Tangere" to which I have referred, the white
sleeve of the Magdalen is still a beautiful white, quite different from
the white of the fairest of Titian's flesh--proving that Titian never
painted his flesh white.
The so-called "Venus" in the Tribune at Florence is a more important
example still, as it is an elaborately painted picture owing nothing to
the brightness that slight painting often has and retains, the colours
being untormented by repeated re-touching. This picture is a proof that
when the method is good and the pigments pure, the colours change very
little. More than three hundred years have passed, and the white sheet
on which the figure lies is still, in effect, white against the flesh.
The flesh is most lovely in colour--neither violent by shadows or strong
colour--but beautiful flesh. It cannot be compared to ivory or snow, or
any other substance or material; it is simply beautiful lustre on the
surface with a circulation of blood underneath--an absolute triumph
never repeated except by Titian himself.
It is probable that the pictures by Reynolds are often lower in tone
than they were, but it is doubtful whether the Strawberry Hill portraits
are as much changed as may be supposed. Walpole, no doubt, called them
"white and pinky," but it must be remembered that, living before the
days of picture cleaning, he was accustomed to expect them to be brown
and dark, probably even to associate colour with dirt in the Old
Masters. The purer, clearer, and richer the colours are, the better a
picture will be; and I think this should be especially insisted upon,
since white is so effective in a modern exhibition that young artists
are naturally prompted to profit by the means cheaply afforded and
readily at hand.
I think it is probable that where Titian has used brown-green he
intended it, since in many of the Venetian pictures we find green
draperies of a beautiful colour. Sir John seems to infer that the
colours used in the decoration of the Parthenon (no doubt used) were
crude. The extraordinary refinements demonstrated in a lecture by Mr.
Penrose on the spot last year, at which I had the good fortune to be
present, forbid such a conclusion. A few graduated inches in the
circumference of the columns, and deflection from straight line in the
pediment and in the base-line, proved by measurement and examination to
be carefully intentional, will not permit us for a moment to believe
this could have been the case; so precise in line, rhythmical in
arrangement, lovely in detail, and harmonious in effect, it could never
have been crude in colour. No doubt the marble was white, but
illuminated by such a sun, and set against such a sky and distance, the
white, with its varieties of shadow, aided by the colours employed,
could have gleaned life and flame in its splendour. Colour was certainly
used, and the modern eye might at first have something to get over, but
there could have been nothing harsh and crude. The exquisite purity of
line and delicacy of edge could never have been matched with crudity or
anything like harshness of colour. To this day the brightest colours may
be seen on the columns at Luxor and Philae with beautiful effect.
_Watts._