nature re in the mind may for new how- creation." The "Essay on Beauty." seen from his standpoint. He leaves out, does not see, the sides of the question that do not emphasize his argument. He wishes to convey the idea he has, and everything "The tending to give form to that idea he uses. beauty of Everything not helpful to this end he leaves forms itself out. In conveying a great truth, he sacrifice inconsequent facts. I believe, ever, that this is done unconsciously. artist thinks he is copying what he sees, be- Emersoncause he feels so strongly from his point of view. Of course, this is open to discussion; but if the imagination is true imagination and not merely a grotesque play of fancy, the mind must be in some such condition. Many can learn to copy nature. Few are artists who can make us see and feel with them. The real artist makes us see even the simplest things in a new light. We feel to be true what he shows us, although we have never thought of it in that way before. Thus an artist, although he imitates nature and reproduces its external forms, must throw the light of his individual thought upon it, and this thought or emotion that he conveys by means Painters." Vol. IV. of nature must be his own thought, or some emotion he has personally experienced, and his manner of expressing himself must be proper to himself." The point mentioned by Mr. Brymner, that the act of the artist in leaving out unnecessary facts, or even changing them, is performed unconsciously, is a very interesting one. It is 1" Modern alluded to by Ruskin, who says: "In making these changes Turner does not think at all. They come into his head involuntarily. An entirely imperative dream has taken possession of him; he can see and do no otherwise than as the dream directs. No happy chance, nay, no happy thought, no perfect knowledge, will ever take the place of that mighty unconsciousness." 2 "Landscape." Chap. XIII. In such cases as that of Turner painting P. G. Ham- Loch Awe," or "striking off the refractory erton. 3" Modern summit of Mount Pilatus" as its lines did Painters." Vol. IV. 4 "Essay on John man. not compose well with the rest of the picture of Lucerne, or painting the gorgeous colours of a sunset in a sky where the sun is still well above the horizon, it is difficult to realize that the act was an entirely unconscious one.1 But generally it does seem most probable 1"It was that the artist feels what he must paint, what not merely topography that he up set, and the mountains that he he must leave out, and the manner in which he must paint, without any distinct consciousness that he is changing what he sees, or giving other than the truthful impression of the scene about, but before him. marshalled he outdid Joshua in he took with moon." charm cay of Art." W. J. Still When man. "To-day," writes Amiel in his "Journal," the liberties we have been talking realism in painting the sun and of that poetical and artistic illusion which and the does not aim at being confounded with reality "The Deitself. The object of true art is only to the imagination, not to deceive the eye. we see a good portrait we say, 'It is alive!' In other words, our imagination lends it life. We see what is given us, and we give on our side. A work of art ought to set the poetical faculty in us to work to complete our perceptions of a thing. Sympathy is a first condition of criticism."2 Thus there are two ways of painting a scape, and there are two points of view 2" Painting land does not deal in the from purely visi ble. It deals The also in the which the painting may be studied. artist, in the first place, may give us merely suggestive and the an exact likeness of the external view, well allusive, |