Venetian colorists: as in his portraits of Leo X., Julius, and some parts of his frescos. But for the most part, though he had the genius for everything, for color as well as form, yet one may conjecture he found color in its greatest excellence too laborious for the careful elaboration which can alone produce great results, too costly of time and toil, the sacrifice too great of the greater to the less. Allston was apparently never weary of the labor which would add one more tint of truth to the color of a head or a hand, or even of any object of still life, that entered into any of his compositions. Any eye that looks can see that it was a most laborious and difficult process by which he secured his results,--by no superficial wash of glaring pigments, as in the color of Rubens, whose carnations look as if he had finished the forms at once, the lights and the darks in solid opaque colors, and then with a free, broad brush or sponge washed in the carmine, lake, and vermilion, to confer the requisite amount of red,--but, on the contrary, wrought out in solid color from beginning to end, by a painful and sagacious formation, on the palette, of the very tint by which the effect, the lights, shadows, and half-shadows, and the thousand almost imperceptible gradations of hue which bind together the principal masses of light and shade, was to be produced." Here Mr. Ware undoubtedly errs in attributing the success of Allston's flesh tints to the use of solid color alone. Such effects are not possible without the aid of transparent colors in glazing; but it is the judicious combination of solid with transparent pigments, combined not bodily on the palette, but in their use on the canvas, that gives to oil-painting all its unrivalled power in the hands of a master. Allston was accustomed to inlay his pictures in solid crude color with a medium that hardened like stone, and to leave them months and even years to dry before finishing them with the glazing colors, which worked in his hands like magic over such a well-hardened surface. By this method of working he was able to secure solidity of appearance, richness of color, unity of effect, and atmospheric repose and tenderness enveloping all objects in the picture. Many of his unfinished works are left in the first stage of this process, showing precisely how far he relied on the use of solid color; and by comparing the works left in this state with his finished pictures, one may see how much he was indebted to the use of transparent glazes for the beauty, tenderness, and variety of color in the last stages of his work.