Reynolds himself rightly excluded Titian when he condemned the later Venetian painters of the Renaissance for their exaggeration of colour, and no doubt Titian was also exempted by J. A. Symonds in his trenchant criticism of the work of this school. When dealing with the decline of Lesbian poetry after the brilliant period of Sappho, he wrote[c]:
In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provençal troubadours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art on the beauty of colour, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
[a] Life of Titian.
[] Reynolds's Fourth Discourse.
[c] Studies of the Greek Poets, vol. i.
[NOTE 68. PAGE 232]
Sir George Beaumont relates of Reynolds[a]:
On his return from his second tour over Flanders and Holland, he observed to me that the pictures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they had done on his former inspection. He could not for some time account for this little circumstance; but when he recollected that when he first saw them he had his notebook in his hand for the purpose of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less impression than they had done formerly. By the eye passing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the colours derived uncommon richness and warmth; but for want of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold.
[a] Cunningham's Lives of the British Painters.