pe of pyramids, and crosses,
and zigzags, into which arms and legs are to be persuaded, and passion
and motion arranged, for the promotion and encouragement of the cant of
criticism, such a principle may be productive of the most advantageous
results. But if it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual,
systematic, unintrusive simplicity and unwearied variety of nature's
chiaroscuro--if it means the perception that blackness and sublimity are
not synonymous, and that space and light may possibly be
coadjutors--then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a
principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in
chiaroscuro. And my firm belief is, that though color is inveighed
against by all artists, as the great Circe of art--the great transformer
of mind into sensuality--no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so
great a peril and stumbling-block to the young student, as the
admiration he hears bestowed on such artificial, false, and juggling
chiaroscuro, and the instruction he receives, based on such principles
as that given us by Fuseli--that "mere natural light and shade, however
separately or individually true, is not always legitimate chiaroscuro in
art." It may not always be _agreeable_ to a sophisticated, unfeeling,
and perverted mind; but the student had better throw up his art at once,
than proceed on the conviction that any other can ever be _legitimate_.
I believe I shall be perfectly well able to prove, in following parts of
the work, that "mere natural light and shade" is the only fit and
faithful attendant of the highest art; and that all tricks--all visible,
intended arrangement--all extended shadows and narrow lights--everything
in fact, in the least degree artificial, or tending to make the mind
dwell upon light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to
conceptions of high ideal dignity. I believe I shall be able also to
show, that nature manages her chiaroscuro a great deal more neatly and
cleverly than people fancy;--that "mere natural light and shade" is a
very much finer thing than most artists can put together, and that none
think they can improve upon it but those who never understood it.

Sec. 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.

But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every permission
given to the student to amuse himself with painting one figure all
black, and the next all white, and throwing them out with a background
of noth