For it must be remembered that this mass of decorative work did not by any means represent the whole of his achievement, but was, in fact, brought into existence in the intervals of his not less remarkable activity as a picture painter. The number of his finished pictures in different mediums was about two hundred, and his cartoons for stained glass alone make a list of a thousand or more; when to these are added his designs for other purposes, his sketches and studies, and the rough notes by which he gave the first visible shape to the mental images which he proposed to put later on into a completed form, the result arrived at is simply bewildering. Only by the most unremitting industry could he have done so much, and only a man with an abnormally prolific imagination and extraordinary powers of invention could have kept up as he did the high standard of his art. [Illustration: PLATE V.--THE MILL (South Kensington Museum) This picture is one of those on which Burne-Jones worked at intervals for several years. Commenced in 1870, and taken up and set aside time after time, it was not exhibited until 1882, when it appeared at the Grosvenor Gallery. It is an example, and a very attractive one, of the daintier side of the artist's practice, a decorative composition planned with masterly restraint and with a wholly sympathetic understanding of the charm of pure and unforced sentiment. It has both grace and distinction.] The pictorial work of Burne-Jones during the earlier 'sixties marked well the manner in which he was finding his way to the full avowal of his artistic creed. At first he was, as might have been expected, frankly inclined to imitate Rossetti, and to follow closely in methods and sentiment the master whom he worshipped and from whom he had received such invaluable assistance. But gradually this influence waned, as increasing confidence in his own powers enabled him to assert more clearly his individual view of his æsthetic responsibilities, and as the widening of his experience opened up to him fresh aspects of the artistic problems with which he had to deal. His development was, no doubt, much assisted by a second visit which he paid to Italy in the spring of 1862, a visit in which he had as his companion Ruskin, with whom he was by then on terms of intimacy. He stayed first at Milan and then went on to Venice, where he remained for some while making copies of Tintoretto and other masters for Ruskin, and studying for his own instruction and enjoyment the works of the earlier masters generally and of Carpaccio particularly.