ose contrary
opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the greater truth, as it
may be called, from the lesser truth; the larger and more liberal idea
of nature from the more narrow and confined: that which addresses itself
to the imagination, from that which is solely addressed to the eye. In
consequence of this discrimination, the different branches of our art to
which those different truths were referred, were perceived to make so
wide a separation, and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed
scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. The different
rules and regulations which presided over each department of art,
followed of course; every mode of excellence, from the grand style of
the Roman and Florentine schools down to the lowest rank of still life,
had its due weight and value--fitted to some class or other; and nothing
was thrown away. By this disposition of our art into classes, that
perplexity and confusion, which I apprehend every artist has at some
time experienced from the variety of styles, and the variety of
excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should hope, in some
measure removed, and the student better enabled to judge for himself
what peculiarly belongs to his own particular pursuit." Besides the
practice of art, the student must think, and speculate, and consider
"upon what ground the fabric of our art is built." An artist suffers
throughout his whole life, from uncertain, confused, and erroneous
opinions. We are persuaded there would be fewer fatal errors were these
Discourses more in the hands of our present artists--"Nocturna versate
manu, versate diurna."--An example is given of the mischief of erroneous
opinions. "I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my life, with
a student of the French Academy, who appeared to me to possess all the
qualities requisite to make a great artist, if he had suffered his taste
and feelings, and I may add even his prejudices, to have fair play. He
saw and felt the excellences of the great works of art with which we
were surrounded, but lamented that there was not to be found that nature
which is so admirable in the inferior schools,--and he supposed with
Felebien, Du Piles, and other theorists, that such an union of different
excellences would be the perfection of art. He was not aware that the
narrow idea of nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works of
those great artists, would have destroyed the grandeur of the gene