fire of a volcano: one moment shutting himself into obscure chambers of imagery, the next plunged into the revolutionless day of heaven, and piercing space, deeper than the mind can follow or the eye fathom; we find him by turns appalling, pensive, splendid, profound, profuse; and throughout sacrificing every minor quality to the power of his prevalent mood. By such an artist it might, perhaps, be presumed that a different system of color would be adopted in almost every picture, and that if a chiaroscuro ground were independently laid, it would be in a neutral gray, susceptible afterwards of harmony with any tone he might determine upon, and not in the vivid brown which necessitated brilliancy of subsequent effect. We believe, accordingly, that while some of the pieces of this master's richer color, such as the Adam and Eve in the Gallery of Venice, and we suspect also the miracle of St. Mark, may be executed on the pure Flemish system, the greater number of his large compositions will be found based on a gray shadow; and that this gray shadow was independently laid we have more direct proof in the assertion of Boschini, who received his information from the younger Palma: "Quando haveva stabilita questa importante distribuzione, _abboggiava il quadro tutto di chiaroscuro_;" and we have, therefore, no doubt that Tintoret's well-known reply to the question, "What were the most beautiful colors?" "_Il nero, e il bianco_," is to be received in a perfectly literal sense, beyond and above its evident reference to abstract principle. Its main and most valuable meaning was, of course, that the design and light and shade of a picture were of greater importance than its color; (and this Tintoret felt so thoroughly that there is not one of his works which would seriously lose in power if it were translated into chiaroscuro); but it implied also that Tintoret's idea of a shadowed preparation was in gray, and not in brown.