n relations. It is the training of the eye and the judgment.
Imitation is not the highest art; but the highest art requires the
ability to imitate as a mere power of representation. The mind must
not be hampered in its expression by lack of knowledge and control of
materials, and the painter who is constantly occupied with the
problems he should have worked out in his student days, is just so far
from being a master. He must have all his means perfectly at his
command before he can freely express himself.

The acquirement of this mastery of means is the student's business.
Everything he does which aids him in this makes him so much nearer to
being a painter. But he must remember that he is still a student, and
as he hopes to be a painter, must have patience with himself; must not
hurry himself, must work as a student for the ends of a student.

All the facts of nature art uses. But she uses them as she needs them,
simplifying, emphasizing, suppressing, combining as will best meet the
necessities of the case in hand. All this requires the utmost
knowledge, for it must be done in accordance not only with laws of
art, but with the laws of nature.

There are changes which can be made, and be right--made as nature
might make them. Other changes which would be false to nature's ways,
and so false to art also. For art works through nature always, and in
accordance with her. This is the aim of the painter, to express ideas
through nature, not to express notions about nature.

The facts of nature are the material of art; the words of the language
in which the ideas of art are to be conveyed. But there are truths
more important than these facts. The underlying sentiment of which
they are the external manifestation, and which is the vivifying spirit
of them. This is the true fact of the picture.

It is more important to give the sentiment of the thing than to give
the fact of it; not merely because it is more truly represented so,
but because the beauty is shown in showing the character. For the
character of the fact is the beauty of the fact.

To bring out the beauty which may lie in the fact is the aim of the
artist; to acquire the ability to do this is the aim of the student.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW TO STUDY

There is a right and a wrong way to study, and it all centres around
the fact that what you aim to learn is perception and expression. What
you are to e