Parrhasius himself, the father of Contour, was not, by Pliny’s account[47], master enough to hit the line by which completeness is distinguished from superfluity: shunning corpulency he fell into leanness: and Zeuxis’s Contour was perhaps like that of Rubens, if it be true that, to augment the majesty of his figures, he drew with more completeness. His female figures he drew like those of Homer[48], of robust limbs: and does not even the tenderest of poets, Theocritus, draw his Helen as fleshy and tall[49] as the Venus of Raphael in the assembly of the gods in the little Farnese? Rubens then, for painting like Homer and Theocritus, needs no apology.
The character of Raphael, in the treatise, is drawn with truth and exactness: but well may we ask the author, as Antalcidas the Spartan asked a sophist, ready to burst forth in a panegyrick on Hercules, “Who blames him?” The beauties however of the Raphael at Dresden, especially the pretended ones of the Jesus, are still warmly disputed.
What you admire, we laugh at.
Why did not he rather display his patriotism against those Italian connoisseurs, whose squeamish stomachs rise against every Flemish production?
Turpis Romano Belgicus ore color.
Propert. L. II. Eleg. 8.
And indeed are not colours so essential, that without them no picture can aspire to universal applause? Do not their bewitching charms cover the most grievous faults? They are the harmonious melody of painting; whatever is offensive vanishes by their splendor, and souls animated with their beauties are absorbed in beholding, as the readers of Homer are by his flowing harmony, so as to find no faults. These, joined to that important science of Chiaro-Oscuro, are the characteristicks of Flemish painting.
Agreeably to affect our eye is the first thing in a picture[50], which to obtain, obvious charms are wanted; not such as spring only from reflection. Colouring moreover belongs peculiarly to pictures; whereas design ought to be in every draught, print, &c. and indeed seems easier to be attained than colouring.
The best colourists, according to a celebrated writer[51], have always come after the inventors and contourists; we all know the vain attempts of the famous Poussin. In short, all those