Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
Prometheus went out in your hands over and over again; there are
several parts of your painting on which the celestial flame never
shone."
"But why is it so, my dear master?" said Porbus humbly, while the
young man could hardly restrain a strong desire to strike the critic.
"Ah! that is the question," said the little old man. "You are floating
between two systems,--between drawing and color, between the patient
phlegm and honest stiffness of the old Dutch masters and the dazzling
warmth and abounding joy of the Italians. You have tried to follow, at
one and the same time, Hans Holbein and Titian; Albrecht Durier and
Paul Veronese. Well, well! it was a glorious ambition, but what is the
result? You have neither the stern attraction of severity nor the
deceptive magic of the chiaroscuro. See! at this place the rich, clear
color of Titian has forced out the skeleton outline of Albrecht
Durier, as molten bronze might burst and overflow a slender mould.
Here and there the outline has resisted the flood, and holds back the
magnificent torrent of Venetian color. Your figure is neither
perfectly well painted nor perfectly well drawn; it bears throughout
the signs of this unfortunate indecision. If you did not feel that the
fire of your genius was hot enough to weld into one the rival methods,
you ought to have chosen honestly the one or the other, and thus
attained the unity which conveys one aspect, at least, of life.
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