ble way. "The strongest possible way" is the question to be debated.
Individual artists interpret this as suits their temperament, the jury
therefore sits in judgment upon the temperament as the exponent of "the
strongest possible way." With the idea of toil in mind one artist is
moved to present its unadorned force, careful not to weaken the conception
by the addition of anything superfluous or extraneous to the idea. Its
force is therefore ideal force and the presentation appeals to and moves
us on this basis. Another will see in the subject of a landscape, a man
and a horse, an opportunity presented of detail and of surfaces and will
delight in expressing what he knows to do cleverly. Under this impulse
the dexterity of his art is poured forth; the long training of the
workshop aids him. He paints the horse and makes it look not only like a
real horse, but a particular one. The bourgeois claps his hands
exclaiming, "See it is unmistakably old Dobbin, the white spot on his
fetlock is there and his tail ragged on the end; and the laborer, I know
him at once. How true to life with side whiskers and that ugly cut across
the forehead and his hat with the hole in it. The field too is all there,
the stones, the weeds, the rows of stubble, nothing slighted. And the
action of the light too, what a relief the figures possess, how like
colored photographs they stand out, clear, sharp and unmistakable."

A third artist, without sacrificing the individual character of the horse
will yet represent him in such a way that one feels first the idea, of a
laboring horse and afterward notes that he is a particular horse, and in
like manner with the man of the picture. This artist's conception lies
midway between the two extremes and in consequence expresses greater truth
than either. He poises himself on the magic line spanning the chasm
between these opposing walls, supported by the balancing pole of the real
and ideal, lightly gripped in the centre.

But to return to the first in the spirit of nature-love and truth to prove
if it be worthy. Judged on this scale does it stand? Coordinately with
the idea of toil, does it violate the laws of the universe; do the
surfaces thereof reflect the light of day; is the color probable; is the
action possible? If under this scrutiny the work fails, its acceptable
idealistic expression cannot save it.

It is here that the idealist pleads in vain for the painters of the
groping period