Sir Joshua seems, indeed, to deny that Titian finished much, and says that he produced, by two or three strokes of his pencil, effects which the most laborious copyists would in vain attempt to equal. It is true that he availed himself, in a considerable degree, of what is called _execution_, to facilitate his imitation of nature, but it was to facilitate, not to supersede it. By the methods of scumbling or glazing, he often broke the masses of his flesh,—or by laying on lumps of colour produced particular effects, to a degree that he could not otherwise have reached without considerable loss of time. We do not object to execution: it saves labour, and shews a mastery both of hand and eye. But then there is nothing more distinct than execution and _daubing_. Indeed, it is evident, that the only use of execution is to give the details more compendiously, and sometimes, even more happily. Leave out all regard to the details, reduce the whole into crude unvarying masses, and it becomes totally useless; for these can be given just as well without execution as with it. Titian, however, made a very moderate, though a very admirable use of this power; and those who copy his pictures will find, that the simplicity is in the results, not in the details. The other Venetian painters made too violent a use of execution, unless their subjects formed an excuse for them. Vandyke successfully employed it in giving the last finishing to the details. Rembrandt employed it still more, and with more perfect truth of effect.—Rubens employed it equally, but not so as to produce an equal resemblance of nature. His pencil ran away with his eye.—To conclude our observations on this head, we will only add, that while the artist thinks that there is any thing to be done, either to the whole or to the parts of his picture, which can give it still more the look of nature, if he is willing to proceed, we would not advise him to desist.—This rule is still more necessary to the young student, for he will relax in his attention as he grows older. And again, with respect to the subordinate parts of a picture, there is no danger that he will bestow a disproportionate degree of labour upon them, because he will not feel the same interest in copying them, and because a much less degree of accuracy will serve every purpose of deception;—the nicety of our habitual observations being always in proportion to our interest in the objects.—Sir Joshua somewhere objects to the attempt to deceive by painting; and his reason is, that wax-work, which deceives most effectually, is a very disagreeable as well as contemptible art. It might be answered, first, that nothing is much more unlike nature than such figures generally are, and farther, that they only produce the appearance of prominence and relief, by having it in reality,—in which they are just the reverse of painting.