ally relax
his efforts, because he finds few persons who will really see, enjoy,
and comprehend what is depicted, but, for the most part, finds only
those who look at a work superficially, receive from it mere random
impressions, and in some way of their own try to get out of it any
kind of sensation and pleasure.

The worst picture can appeal to our senses and imagination by arousing
their activity, setting them free, and leaving them to themselves, the
best work of art also appeals to our senses, but in a higher language
which, of course, we must understand; it enchains the feelings and
imagination, it deprives us of caprice, we cannot deal with a perfect
work at our will; we are forced to give ourselves up to it, in order
to receive ourselves from it again, exalted and refined.

That these are no dreams we shall try to show gradually, in detail,
and as clearly as possible, we shall call attention particularly to a
contradiction in which the moderns are often involved. They call
the ancients their teachers, they acknowledge in their works an
unattainable excellence, yet they depart both in theory and practice
far from the maxims which the ancients continually observed. In
starting from this important point and in returning to it often, we
shall find others about which something falls to be said.

One of the principal signs of the decay of art is the mixture of its
various kinds. The arts themselves, as well as their branches, are
related to one another, and have a certain tendency to unite, even to
lose themselves in one another; but it is in this that the duty, the
merit, the dignity of the real artist consists, namely, in being able
to separate the field of art in which he works from others, in placing
every art and every branch of art on its own footing, and in isolating
it as far as possible.

It has been noticed that all plastic art strives toward painting, all
literary art toward the drama, and this observation may in the future
give us occasion for important reflections.

The genuine law-giving artist strives for the truth of art, the
lawless artist who follows a blind impulse strives for the reality of
Nature; through the former, art reaches its highest summit, through
the latter its lowest stage.

What holds good of art in general holds good also of the kinds of art.
The sculptor must think and feel differently from the painter, indeed
he must proceed when he wishes to produce a work in relief, in a
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