Before, neatness and high finishing were supposed to belong exclusively to the littleness of nature, but here truth, simplicity and unity are her characteristics. Soon after, Sir Joshua says, ‘I should be sorry if what has been said should be understood to have any tendency to encourage that carelessness which leaves work in an unfinished state. I commend nothing for the want of exactness; I mean to point out that kind of exactness which is the best, and which is alone truly to be so esteemed.’—Vol. II. p. 65. This Sir Joshua has already told us consists in getting above ‘all particularities and details of every kind.’ Once more we find it is stated that ‘It is in vain to attend to the variation of tints, if in that attention the general hue of flesh is lost; or to finish ever so minutely the parts, if the masses are not observed, or the whole not well put together.’ Nothing can be truer: but why always suppose the two things at variance with each other? ‘Titian’s manner was then new to the world, but that unshaken truth on which it is founded, has fixed it as a model to all succeeding painters; and those who will examine into the artifice, will find it to consist in the power of generalising, and in the shortness and simplicity of the means employed.’—Page 51. Titian’s real excellence consisted in the power of generalising and of _individualising_ at the same time: if it were merely the former, it would be difficult to account for the error immediately after pointed out by Sir Joshua. He says in the very next paragraph: ‘Many artists, as Vasari likewise observes, have ignorantly imagined they are imitating the manner of Titian, when they leave their colours rough, and neglect the detail: but not possessing the principles on which he wrought, they have produced what he calls _goffe pitture_, absurd, foolish pictures.’—_Ibid._ p. 54. Many artists have also imagined they were following the directions of Sir Joshua when they did the same thing, that is, neglected the detail, and produced the same results, vapid generalities, absurd, foolish pictures. I will only give two short passages more, and have done with this part of the subject. I am anxious to confront Sir Joshua with his own authority. ‘The advantage of this method of considering objects (_as a whole_) is what I wish now more particularly to enforce. At the same time I do not forget, that a painter must have the power of contracting as well as dilating his sight; because he that does not at all express particulars, expresses nothing; yet it is certain that a nice discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have (and I do not mean to detract from it), never did confer on the artist the character of Genius.’—Vol. II. p. 44. At page 53, we find the following words: