Nor was the change less in his method than his motives.
Before his day painting had been without composition, without charm of colour, without suggestion of movement or the play of living energy.

He first knew how to distribute figures in the given space with perfect balance, and how to mass them together in animated groups agreeable to the eye.

He caught varied and transient shades of emotion, and expressed them by the posture of the body and the play of feature.

The hues of morning and of evening served him.

Of all painters he was most successful in preserving the clearness and the light of pure, well-tempered colours.