Note 139 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 6)

Layard, ii. 621. Similarly Ruskin says: "The possession of the Pisani Veronese will happily enable the English public and the English artist to convince themselves how sincerity and simplicity in statements of fact, power of draughtsmanship, and joy in colour, were associated in a perfect balance in the great workmen in Venice" (Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings, 1858, p. 10). As an instance of Veronese's "economical work"—a sure sign of a great painter—Ruskin refers to "the painting of the pearls on the breast of the nearer princess, in our best Paul Veronese. The lowest is about the size of a small hazel nut, and falls on her rose-red dress. Any other but a Venetian would have put a complete piece of white paint over the dress, for the whole pearl, and painted that into the colours of the stone. But Veronese knows beforehand that all the dark side of the pearl will reflect the red of the dress. He will not put white over the red, only to put red over the white again. He leaves the actual dress for the dark side of the pearl, and with two small separate touches, one white, another brown, places its high light and shadow. This he does with perfect care and calm: but in two decisive seconds. There is no dash nor display, nor hurry, nor error. The exactly right thing is done in the exactly right place, and not one atom of colour, nor moment of time spent vainly. Look close at the two touches,—you wonder what they mean. Retire six feet from the picture—the pearl is there!" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 18). "One of the chief delights which any one who really enjoys painting finds in that art as distinct from sculpture, is in the exquisite inlaying or joiner's work of it, the fitting of edge to edge with a manual skill, precisely correspondent to the close application of crowded notes without the least slur, in fine harp or piano-playing. In many of the finest works of colour on a large scale, there is even some admission of the quality given to a painted window by the dark lead bars between the pieces of glass. Both Tintoret and Veronese, when they paint on dark grounds, continually stop short with their tints just before they touch others, leaving the dark ground showing between in a narrow bar. In the Paul Veronese in the National Gallery, you will find every here and there pieces of outline which you would suppose were drawn with a brown pencil. But no! look close, and you will find that they are the dark ground left between two tints, brought close to each other without touching" (Lectures on Landscape, § 68). Elsewhere, Ruskin calls special attention to the painting of "the drooped left hand of the princess, holding her crown" (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 46).