On the Venetian Painter.
He makes the lame to walk we all agree;
But then he strives to blind all who can see!
Many readers of the .present day, who have learned to almost worship the transcendant Venetian painters—Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, Veronese, not to speak of the Bellini, Carpaccio, &c.—may be startled to note Blake's pertinacious scorn of them. Such readers will do well to remember that Blake, who had never been abroad, must have formed his idea of the Venetians almost wholly from engravings, and from what writers like Reynolds say of the characteristics of the school. 'He had picked up his notions of Titian,' says Mr. Palmer, 'from picture-dealers' "Titians!"'
When Reynolds speaks of Fresco as 'a mode of painting which excludes attention to minute elegancies,' Blake observes, 'This is false, Fresco-painting is the most minute. It is like miniature-painting. A wall is a large ivory.'
In the Fifth Discourse we are told that Raphael 'was never able' (in his easel-pictures) 'to conquer perfectly that dryness, or even littleness of manner, which he inherited from his master.' Upon which, Blake: 'He who does not admire Raphael's execution does not even see Raphael! ' And the assertion that Raphael owes the grandeur of his style, and much else, to Michael Angelo, is met by a favourite simile of Blake's: 'I believe this no more than I believe that the rose teaches the lily how to grow, or that the apple teaches the pear tree how to bear fruit.'
Prefatory to the same Discourse Blake writes, 'Gainsborough told a gentleman of rank and fortune that the worst painters always chose the grandest subjects. I desired the gentleman to set Gainsborough about one of Raphael's grandest subjects, namely, Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter; and he would find that in Gainsborough's
