He was always of a retiring disposition and never
exhibited publicly after he was twenty-eight years of age. As a
draughtsman he was awkward in line and not always true in modelling.
In color he was superior to his associates and had considerable
decorative feeling. The shortcoming of his art, as with that of the
others of the Brotherhood, was that in seeking truth of detail he lost
truth of _ensemble_. This is perhaps better exemplified in the works
of Holman Hunt. He has spent infinite pains in getting the truth of
detail in his pictures, has travelled in the East and painted types,
costumes, and scenery in Palestine to gain the historic truths of his
Scriptural scenes; but all that he has produced has been little more
than a survey, a report, a record of the facts. He has not made a
picture. The insistence upon every detail has isolated all the facts
and left them isolated in the picture. In seeking the minute truths
he has overlooked the great truths of light, air, and setting. His
color has always been crude, his values or relations not well
preserved, and his brush-work hard and tortured.
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