The design of Raphael is either historic or poetic. The forms of his historic style are characteristic, those of his poetic style he himself calls ideal:[30] the former are regulated by nature, but these are only exaggerations of another style.
The forms of Julio Pipi are poised between character and caricature, but verge to this; even his dresses and ornaments are caricatures; but no poet or painter ever rocked the cradle of infant mythology with simpler or more primitive grace; none ever imparted to allegory a more insinuating power, or swayed the strife of elemental war with a bolder hand. What ever equalled the exuberance of invention scattered over the T of Mantoua?
The line of Polydoro, is that of the antique basso-relievo, seen from beneath (da sotto in su).
The forms of Titian are those of sanguine health; robust, not grand; soft without delicacy.
Tintoretto attempted to fill the line of Michael Angelo with colour, without tracing its principle.
As Michael Angelo was impressed with an idea of grandeur, so Correggio was charmed with a notion of harmony: his line was correct when harmony permitted; it strayed as harmony commanded.
Elegance (sueltezza) was the principle of Parmegiano's line, but he forgot proportion.
Annibale Carracci, one of the founders of the Eclectic school, attempted to combine in his line the appearance of Nature with style, and became the standard of academic drawing.
The medium, not the thing, was the object of the Tuscan and Venetian schools; the school of Urbino[31] aimed at subjecting the medium to the character of things; the Lombards strove to unite the separate attainments of the three with the unattainable spell of Correggio; the Germans, with their Flemish and Dutch branches, now humbly followed, now boldly attempted to improve their Italian masters; the French passed the Alps to study at Rome and Venice what they were to forget at Paris.
Domenichino aimed at the characteristic line of Raffaelle, the compactness of Annibale, and the beauty of the antique; and mixing something of each fell short of all.