"It is time," said he, "that I should speak of myself and of my object in Venice. I am a native of Florence, and a painter. Wearied and disgusted with the skeletons of Florentine art, I came here to study the flesh and blood of the Venetian school. The works of Titian realise everything which is valuable and essential in the art of painting, and the student who does not pursue the track of this great master will never attain high rank as a painter. In Venice, the public voice has supreme jurisdiction in matters of taste and fine art, and the artists collectively exercise little influence on public opinion. Titian fascinates all amateurs, and every artist admits his incomparable excellence in the great essential of painting, which is truth of colouring." "I am still too much a novice in the theories of your beautiful art," I replied, "to contend this point with you; but you will pardon me if I suggest the probability that you are disgusted with the severity of the Tuscan school. Your abhorrence of the yoke you have escaped from impels you to the other extreme, and your admiration of Venetian art is heightened by contrasting the flesh and blood of Titian with the bones and sinews of Michael Angelo. Nevertheless, I will hazard a prediction, that instead of abandoning for ever the sound principles of the Florentine school, you will eventually resume and abide by them. Our graceful Titian is the prince of colourists, but it must be admitted that his drawing seldom rises above mediocrity." "You must excuse me," he retorted with a smile, "if I doubt whether your position can be maintained. I infer from the tendency of your remarks that you consider drawing of primary importance. I admit that drawing is essential to give truth and symmetry of proportion, and is therefore a necessary evil; but a finished picture represents the surfaces of things: surfaces are distinguishable only by colouring, and therefore I maintain that colouring is the real object--the alpha and omega--of art. To class drawing above painting, is to prefer the scaffold to the building--the rude and early stages to the full and rich maturity of art. What are the sharp and vigorous lines of Michael Angelo but dreams and shadows, compared with the pure and exquisite vitality of a head by Titian? Any beardless tyro may, by plodding industry, produce a drawing as accurate, if not as free, as the off-hand sketches of Raffaelle; but to delineate real life with its exquisitely blended tints and demi-tints; its tender outlines, and evanescent shades of character and expression,--to accomplish all this by lines and angles is impossible. It requires the magic aid of colouring, controlled by that deep and rare perception of the beautiful, that wondrous harmony of intellect and feeling, which is the immediate gift of heaven, and the proudest, highest attribute of man."