nd have any ingenuity of judgment in discerning
them, you may always accurately ascertain what are the noble characters
in a piece of painting by merely considering what are the noble
characters of man in his association with his fellows. What grace of
manner and refinement of habit are in society, grace of line and
refinement of form are in the association of visible objects. What
advantage or harm there may be in sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintness
in the dealings or conversations of men; precisely that relative degree
of advantage or harm there is in them as elements of pictorial
composition. What power is in liberty or relaxation to strengthen or
relieve human souls; that power precisely in the same relative degree,
play and laxity of line have to strengthen or refresh the expression of
a picture. And what goodness or greatness we can conceive to arise in
companies of men, from chastity of thought, regularity of life,
simplicity of custom, and balance of authority; precisely that kind of
goodness and greatness may be given to a picture by the purity of its
color, the severity of its forms, and the symmetry of its masses.

135. You need not be in the least afraid of pushing these analogies too
far. They cannot be pushed too far; they are so precise and complete,
that the farther you pursue them, the clearer, the more certain, the
more useful you will find them. They will not fail you in one
particular, or in any direction of inquiry. There is no moral vice, no
moral virtue, which has not its _precise_ prototype in the art of
painting; so that you may at your will illustrate the moral habit by the
art, or the art by the moral habit. Affection and discord, fretfulness,
and quietness, feebleness and firmness, luxury and purity, pride and
modesty, and all other such habits, and every conceivable modification
and mingling of them, may be illustrated, with mathematical exactness,
by conditions of line and color; and not merely these definable vices
and virtues, but also every conceivable shade of human character and
passion, from the righteous or unrighteous majesty of the king to the
innocent or faultful simplicity of the shepherd boy.

136. The pursuit of this subject belongs properly, however, to the
investigation of the higher branches of composition, matters which it
would be quite useless to treat of in this book; and I only allude to
them here, in order that you may understand how the utmost noblenesses
of art are