It is not an easy task to point out those various excellences for your
imitation which he distributed amongst the various schools. An endeavour
to do this may perhaps be the subject of some future discourse. I will,
therefore, at present only recommend a model for style in painting, which
is a branch of the art more immediately necessary to the young student.
Style in painting is the same as in writing, a power over materials,
whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are
conveyed. And in this Lodovico Carrache (I mean in his best works)
appears to me to approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected
breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of colouring, which holding
its proper rank, does not draw aside the least part of the attention from
the subject, and the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused
over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and dignified
subjects, better than the more artificial brilliancy of sunshine which
enlightens the pictures of Titian. Though Tintoret thought that Titian's
colouring was the model of perfection, and would correspond even with the
sublime of Michael Angelo; and that if Angelo had coloured like Titian,
or Titian designed like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect
painter.

It is our misfortune, however, that those works of Carrache which I would
recommend to the student are not often found out of Bologna. The "St.
Francis in the midst of his Friars," "The Transfiguration," "The Birth of
St. John the Baptist," "The Calling of St. Matthew," the "St. Jerome,"
the fresco paintings in the Zampieri Palace, are all worthy the attention
of the student. And I think those who travel would do well to allot a
much greater portion of their time to that city than it has been hitherto
the custom to bestow.