In order to study the Louvre aright, in short, you must be =continually comparing=. In a word, regard each work, first, as a representation of such-and-such a subject, falling into its proper place in the evolution of its series: second, as belonging to such-and-such a school or nationality: third, as representing such-and-such an age in the historical evolution of the art of painting: fourth, as exhibiting the individuality, the style, the characteristics, the technique, and the peculiar touch of such-and-such an individual painter. Only thus can you study art aright in this or any other gallery. Try this method on Van Eyck’s Madonna, on Titian’s Entombment, on Sebastiano del Piombo’s Visitation, and on Memling’s little John Baptist, which is one attendant saint from a triptych whose Madonna is missing. * * * * * Some other time, consider in detail the two delicately luminous =frescoes by Luini=, in the Salle Duchâtel. Before doing so, however, read on the spot the following remarks. I have spoken here for the most part from the point of view of those visitors who have not travelled much in Italy or the Low Countries. And, as a matter of fact, the Louvre is the first great picture gallery on the Continent visited by nine out of ten English or Americans. In reality, however, since this collection contains several isolated masterpieces of all the great schools, together with several unconnected pictures of minor artists, it requires, almost more than any other great gallery, to be seen by the light of information acquired elsewhere. It ought, therefore, to be examined _after_ as well as, and even more than, _before_ visits to other countries. This collection, for example, includes works by Van Eyck, by Memling, by Giotto, by Fra Angelico. But Van Eyck can only be fully understood by those who have visited Ghent; Memling can only be fully understood by those who have visited Bruges: it is impossible really to comprehend Giotto unless you have seen his great series of frescoes in the Madonna dell’ Arena at Padua: it is impossible really to comprehend Fra Angelico unless you have examined the saintly and ecstatic works at San Marco in Florence. Thus you have to bear in mind that the works in the Louvre are only =stray examples= of masters and schools with whom an adequate acquaintance must be obtained elsewhere. It was for this reason that I began these notes with special examples of Mantegna, because he is one of the very few artists, other than French, of whom you can form some tolerably fair conception in Paris alone, to be pieced out afterwards by observation in Italy.