Med at is missed. The more simple the palette, the better will be the
picture. We are taught
by the practice
as well as words of Titian, who said that "whoever would be a painter,
should be well acquainted with three colours, and have a perfect command
over them." There are some excellent observations on this subject in the
translator's preface, who quotes from Sir Humphrey Davy on colours. "If
red and yellow ochres, blacks
and whites,
were the colours most employed by Protogenes and Apelles, so are they
likewise the colours most employed by Raffaelle and Titian in their best
style. The St John and Venus in the tribune of the gallery at Florence
offer striking examples of pictures, in which all the deeper tints are
evidently produced
by red and yellow ochres, and
carbonaceous substances." Cennino's argument
for the use of fine gold and good colours, will be read with more
attention by
the modern Germans, who have, it is said, for the purposes of their art
joined the Catholic Church, than
by our English artists, with whom it will but raise a smile, that the
artist should be li
