even in that which gave him his best claim to reputation.

Such is the great principle by which we must be directed in the nobler
branches of our art. Upon this principle the Roman, the Florentine, the
Bolognese schools, have formed their practice; and by this they have
deservedly obtained the highest praise. These are the three great
schools of the world in the epic style. The best of the French school,
Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have formed themselves upon these models,
and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be a colony from the
Roman school. Next to these, but in a very different style of
excellence, we may rank the Venetian, together with the Flemish and the
Dutch schools, all professing to depart from the great purposes of
painting, and catching at applause by inferior qualities.

I am not ignorant that some will censure me for placing the Venetians in
this inferior class, and many of the warmest admirers of painting will
think them unjustly degraded; but I wish not to be misunderstood. Though
I can by no means allow them to hold any rank with the nobler schools of
painting, they accomplished perfectly the thing they attempted. But as
mere elegance is their principal object, as they seem more willing to
dazzle than to affect, it can be no injury to them to suppose that their
practice is useful only to its proper end. But what may heighten the
elegant may degrade the sublime. There is a simplicity, and I may add,
severity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, almost incompatible
with this comparatively sensual style.

Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian schools, seem to have
painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and
expertness in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art
which, as I before observed, the higher style requires its followers to