Note 119 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 5)

Ruskin, in his classification of artists from this point of view, calls them "sensualists," reserving the traditional title "naturalists" to the greatest men, whose "subject is infinite as nature, their colour equally balanced splendour and sadness, reaching occasionally the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally balanced between light and shade." This class represents the proper mean. In excess on one side are the "purists" (Angelico, Perugino, Memlinc, Stothard), who take the good and leave the evil. "The faces of their figures express no evil passions; the skies of their landscapes are without storm; the prevalent character of their colour is brightness, and of their chiaroscuro fulness of light." Then in excess on the other side are the "sensualists" (Salvator Rosa, Caravaggio, Ribera), who "perceive and imitate evil only. They cannot draw the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except covered with stormy clouds; they delight in the beggary and brutality of the human race; their colour is for the most part subdued or lurid, and the greatest spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness" (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi.). Elsewhere, Ruskin speaks of Caravaggio and Ribera as "the black slaves of painting" (Elements of Drawing, p. 317).