...composition."49 It is what Reynolds, writing in The Idler in 1759, identified as the Italian style, which attends only to the invariable, the great and general...which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature: the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the details, I may say, of Nature,...

...which cannot subsist together, and which destrov the efficacy ol each other. The Italian attends onlv to the invariable, the great, and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I mav sav, ol...

...writings as well, such as the letters written for the Idler on his 1750-52 voyage to Italy: The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great, and general...•which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of...

...contrarieties which cannot subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other. The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great, and general...which are fixed and inherent in universal nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of...

...early letter to the Idler (1759) to classify the Italians and the Dutch in these terms: The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great, and general...which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of...

...it will be recalled, Reynolds prefers the Italian painters to the Dutch, because the Italians attend "only to the invariable, the great and general ideas...which are fixed and inherent in universal nature; the Dutch . . . to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail."4*0 The opposition of the invariable...