In order to increase the sensitiveness of the idealisation by merging it in the vague, the refuge of the modern world from the too exacting claims of the actual, Rodin often leaves part of his statues in the rough. So did Michelangelo. But the Italian mind of the fifteenth century, wedded to perfection and finish as an essential of its creed, carried to further sensitiveness the tactile suggestion of the marble by bringing its surface to a smoothness of polish akin to that of jade or ivory, materials which are of peculiarly caressing appeal to the sense of touch. The effect was also heightened by the use of colour. The practice of colouring sculpture dates back to the earliest times which archeological research has been able to embrace. Continuing without interruption to the present times in Oriental countries, it was, however, abandoned in the West. Yet the Greeks and Romans, the Gothic artists, and those of the Italian Renaissance up to the sixteenth century resorted to it freely. Then the practise, for some reason, fell into disuse, and by degrees the strong prejudice against it resulted in forgetfulness that it had ever existed among the greatest artists of antiquity, and it was accepted as a matter of course that one of the chief beauties of a marble statue was its whiteness, and that the colouring of a statue was a habit only of barbarians. But in comparatively recent times we have learned to appreciate the use of colour by the Indians, Chinese and Japanese upon their statues and to understand its motive, and have discovered, as I have said, that the practice was at one time universal. Yet even now the prejudice against it continues. Some artists object to it because the colour tends to make less obvious to the eye their skilful nicety of technique, while among laymen there exists a very general misunderstanding of the motive in using colour.