 The London Magazine was similarly effusive about the painting , admiring Etty 's ability to fuse his own imagination with themes derived from the Elgin Marbles and from the Venetian Old Masters , and commenting that " it is always gratifying to those who feel for the honour and independence of painting when , as in the present instance , an artist successfully relies on nature and the resources of his own mind for his subject , and on the appreciation of collegial minds for his mode of treating it . " The Times , a newspaper which had previously condemned Etty as " offensive and indecent " , felt that " though defective in some respects " The Combat was " a masterly effort " that successfully fused " the florid beauties of the Venetian school " with the " sober dignity and power of the Roman school " and that compared with his previous paintings , which were " too uniformly feeble in character and meretricious in effect to entitle them to any very decided praise " , the painting proved Etty " capable of maintaining a much higher station in art than we had been led to expect . " 
