"The main excellence,
however, in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests
in the incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the
exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his deepest
shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling."
[Footnote: _Lubke History of Art_, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method,
as shown in an unfinished picture of the _Adoration of the Magi_
in the Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was
a black outline, the features and details not defined, but often
roughly indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh
tints, draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in.
[Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for History of Oil Fainting_.] He
did not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze
by glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which
allowed of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and
mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing
to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines.
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