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temple of Jerusalem? Ages of history are in that crumbling arch.

Art refines a nation and a man as nothing else does under religion. Heart-wrought and spiritual refinement comes, it is true, from a deeper source than Art furnishes, but true Art ennobles. The great fear in our country is, that the love of Nature and Art being once tasted of, with our impulsive tendency to exaggeration we shall push it too far, and shall carry it to an absurdity, so that it will be set in the place of higher things. The relative value of things will not be maintained. The simple truth is, that a man who does not feel something of the true and sweet influences of nature, or who does not know at all how to appreciate a noble work of Art, is a rude person. Such a man needs planing and polishing. He is a boor still, although he may be a brave man. And let us not be misunderstood here. We do not refer to mere outward polish. Not such a boorish man was Abraham Lincoln, though in some superficial respects he was perhaps simple and rough. But Abraham Lincoln was a thoroughly genial man; he loved nature; he loved poetry; he loved eloquence; he had the true æsthetic sense. This gave him a finer perception of the beauty and fitness of things, which aided him even in the highest questions of statesmanship and government, and did not rob him of a particle of his honest strength.

But the absurdity and danger which must be confessed is, to confound this taste, or this æsthetic sense, with things of infinitely more value, with manliness, self sacrifice, and goodness. One of the greatest of modern poets (Wordsworth), on the testimony of one of the greatest of modern writers (De Quincey), was a selfish man. Now in the estimate of God, and in the estimate of the best human reason, could all the poet's exquisite appreciation of nature outweigh the essential selfishness of his character, granting this to be true of him, which we do not believe? Which, in the view of taste itself, is the superior quality, the appreciation of the beautiful, or the love of God and man? Which is the eternal attribute of character, a refined mind or a pure heart? There can be no question; but why may not one possess both qualities? Let it once be settled

that the love of the beautiful in Nature and Art is not religion, and beneath that truth, we may legitimately cultivate the love of the beautiful. Our American nature would be enlarged and improved by it. Its sources of healthy enjoyment would be increased. As to the apology for Art, it may be all summed up in a single word, God himself is the true Artist. In his works, every principle of true Art, every combination for the highest effect, every nobleness of form, every method for the production of the most perfect beauty, may be found. What blue is like the blue of the Rosenlaui glacier? Who can paint like Him who made

"The fiery noon and eve's one star?"

For this cause, it may be, Novalis says, that a work of Art belongs to the sphere of spiritual things;* and also, that the poet comprehends nature better than the scientific reason.

We have not left ourselves too much space to speak of some of the principles which seem to lie at the foundation of all Art. The first of these is the imitation of Nature. It is a common and true remark that Art springs from Nature; that its rules are nothing more than an intelligent following of the laws and instincts of Nature; that the artist draws his ideas originally from Nature. But yet Art is not the mere copy of Nature. That fine critic, Haydon, indeed says: "The most perfect imitation of reality was not incompatible with the highest Art. This was the great principle of Greek Art." It is true that the Greek artists did evidently copy the noble forms they saw before them at the public games; and yet that was not all they did. Raphael, it is a familiar fact, took his most beautiful faces from those of the common Italian people who passed daily through the streets of Rome; but did he not do something more than this? Is there not a world-wide difference between him and Gerard Dow, or the Flemish school of painters, who imitated precisely what they saw before them, to every individual hair, laboring for months on a fur collar? The best Art is not this servile following of Nature-it joins to this an action of the artist's own soul, reasoning, selecting,

* Ein Kunstwerk ist ein Geistelement.

individualizing. It thus gives back to its own works the appearance of fresh creations of Nature. It combines, as says Vinet, both the true and the extraordinary. If it copies a tree, it is a free imitation, catching the specific character of the tree, rather than painting every limb and leaf.

Painting after all is an illusory effect. It is not the thing itself, nor the exact transcript of the thing, but rather the real spirit, impression, and effect of it on the mind. In painting three miles of landscape it would be absurd and impossible to copy precisely every tree, shrub, rock, and tuft of grass. If this were so, a canvas on the same scale would be needed; and, as one has remarked, Madame Tussaud's wax-work imitations of Nature would constitute the highest Art. Ruskin well describes the true imitation of Nature in Art. He says: "High Art, therefore, consists neither in altering nor in improving Nature, but in seeking throughout Nature for whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are pure,' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning Art."

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This leads us on to speak of the second great foundation principle of Art, which may be called the true Ideal. This is something which is more purely subjective still, and has its source in the thought of the artist's own mind. It is the expression of the thought-power, especially the imaginative power of the artist; and it makes the difference between the great and small artist in all departments of Art, in oratory and poetry, as well as painting and sculpture. And here let us remark that there is a connection between the arts, thereby making the study of Art an exceedingly comprehensive and useful part of a true education. The ancients understood this. Cicero says that there is a common chain running through all the Arts, so that each contains the other in itself. Another says, "There is a secret union through all the Arts, which makes them fade and flourish together." The principles that apply to the art of Painting, apply also to that of Rhetoric, so that the study of Art helps the preacher and lawyer; for both must go to Nature for their power, and must

draw from her laws.

And has not the preacher, too, his own sacred and beautiful ideal?

The true meaning of the ideal in Art seems to be this,-not in leaving Nature and soaring into some dreamland of the imagination; but in separating a natural object from its accidental and perhaps degrading circumstances, and, by a pure act of the imagination, conceiving the object in its most complete, universal, and perfect form. It is therefore the true idea of the thing, rather than the thing itself. It is the perfect species of the tree, or flower, or man. It is "the perfect idea of the form in which all the properties of the species are fully developed; and in which it is best fitted to discharge the functions for which it was made." Thus he who has a perception of the true ideal of any work of Nature, -even though it be a hedgehog,-who sees its perfect adaptation to the functions of its being-to him it is beautiful. And how varied are the ideals of objects! The genius of the artist is shown in profoundly comprehending these ideal varieties in form, spirit, events, and scenes. The man of action, and the man of thought—a landscape in New England, and a landscape in the tropics-have their ideals, and their deep radical differences, which the artist must penetrate, else a simple imitation of Nature would be really untrue.

Coleridge went so far as to say, that "All which we find in Nature must be created by ourselves; and that alike, whether Nature is gorgeous or powerless, we receive but what we give, and in our own life alone does Nature live." Yet the artist should not carry his search for the ideal to an absurdity, so as to get away from the truth and impulse of Nature. In this way the false ideal arises, and we need the Pre-Raphaelites with their "painful fidelity to Nature," to correct it. But there is the true Ideal; which is the striving to bring out the ideas of truth and beauty which are in Nature. Man's thought is thus permitted to grasp the very ideas of Nature, or to make the real objects of Nature the means of developing these ideas; and thus showing that the human soul is great enough to be the depository of the higher truth or ideal perfection of Nature herself.

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Under these two great general principles which have been mentioned, of the Imitation of Nature and the true Ideal, there are other specific and subordinate, but still essential principles of Art, the first of which, above and beyond all others, may be comprehended in the simple principle of Truth. Truth is not precisely Beauty, but there can be no real Beauty that is not closely related to Truth and Fact. How true are the touches of such an artist as Shakspeare! His description, in King Lear, of Dover Cliff, is exquisitely true to this day. Lady Macbeth, in the night scene, when watched by the doctor and nurse, is hardly more than the bare and powerful description of psychological phenomena that would occur under any circumstances where commanding mind and deep-dyed crime are brought together. Indeed, a modern commentator claims for Shakspeare the prophetic announcement of the Hunterian theory of the circulation of the blood-so true was his imagination in its intuitions. In Art, it is not allowed that even ornament should be ever designed for ornament's sake alone. In our country towns, where the passion for wooden pillars to dwelling-houses obtains, it may be noticed that now and then one of these useless appendages gets its base worn away, or is wrested out of place by some strain or blow, so that the pillar actually hangs suspended from the pediment above, without touching the ground at all, and instead of supporting, it is itself supported. We here see the ridiculous sham of using pillars when they are not wanted to support anything. In the magnificent interior of Milan Cathedral, the ribs and panelings of the groined vault overhead are of wood painted to imitate stone; when one knows this, how much it takes from the power of the impression! Nothing, in a word, in Art, any more than in life, may be without a good reason, or above all, false. It has been well said that we can do without ornament, but we cannot do without integrity; and so it is also in Art. Some have gone so far as to say that nothing which is not really useful, in Art, or which does not spring from utility, can be truly beautiful. "The true ideal is based upon and grows out of the real. It is the artist's first duty to be true to the real. He

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