On his return from his second tour over Flanders and Holland, he observed to me that the pictures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they had done on his former inspection. He could not for some time account for this little circumstance; but when he recollected that when he first saw them he had his notebook in his hand for the purpose of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less impression than they had done formerly. By the eye passing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the colours derived uncommon richness and warmth; but for want of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold. [a] Cunningham's _Lives of the British Painters_. NOTE 69. PAGE 249 Rodin[a] observes that in giving movement to his personages, the artist represents the transition from one pose to another--he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was, and we discover a part of what is to be. Rodin points to Rude's fine statue of Marshal Ney, and practically says that here the illusion is created by a series of progressive actions indicated in the attitude: the legs remaining as they were when the sword was about to be drawn, and the hand still holding the scabbard away from the body, while the chest is being thrown out and the sword held aloft. Thus the sculptor compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development of an act in an individual. The eyes are forced to travel upwards from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and as in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented at successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement performed. Rodin himself has followed a similar course with much success. The ancient Greek sculptors, when representing a figure in action, invariably chose a moment of rest between two progressive steps in the action. The Discobolus and Marsyas of Myron, and particularly the Atalanta in the Louvre, are fine examples. [a] _Art, by Auguste Rodin_, compiled by Paul Gsell, 1916. NOTE 70. PAGE 250 Mengs, in referring to the arrangement of the drapery in Raphael's figures, says[a]: With him every fold has its proper cause; either in its own weight or in the motion of the limbs. Sometimes the folds enable us to tell what has preceded; herein too Raphael has endeavoured to find significance. It can be seen by the position of the folds, whether an arm or a leg has been moved forwards or backwards into the attitude which it actually occupies; whether a limb has been, or is being, moved from a contracted position into a straightened one, or whether it was extended at first and is being contracted. [a] _The Works of Anton Raphael Mengs_, vol. ii., D'Azara translation. NOTE 71. PAGE 258