and utilized
in nature were forms for his designs and sentiment for emotional
expression. Yet the recorder of his labors followed after, verifying his
findings with near-sighted scrutiny, lauding him with commendations for
keen observation in noting rock fractures, the bark of trees, grass, or
the precise shape of clouds, undismayed when his hero neglected all these
if they interfered with his art.

The point of the argument as stated by the idealists can be understood
only save through the element in our nature from which art draws its
vitality. Its deduction is thus bluntly expressed; "the nearest to
nature, the farther from art," an apparent paradox paralleled by the
epigram, "the nearer the church, the farther from God."

Both of them, out of their hollow clamor, echo back a startling truth: Not
_form,_ but _spirit._ Thus did Rembrandt work for the spirit of the man
and _the art to be got_ from the waiting subject. Thus did Millet reveal
in his representation of a single toiler the type of all labor. Thus did
Corot stop, when he had produced the spirit of the morning, knowing well
his nymphs would have vanished if the mystery of their hiding-places was
entirely laid bare, nor ever come to him again had he exposed the full
truth of form and feature.

It is the touch of poesy which has glorified these works and those of
their kind, the spring of the unwritten law yielding preeminence to the
emotional arts. Impulse is the life of it: it dies when short tethered by
specific limitations.

On this basis the way seems opened to settle the changeful formulas of
taste; why the rejection of what for the moment has held the pinnacle of
popular favor; why, for instance, the waning of interest in the detailists
of the brilliant French-Spanish School, the school of Fortuny, Madrazzo,
Villegas, Rico, or of the work of Meissonier, who as a detailist eclipsed
them all. A simple analysis of their work in toto will prove that their
best pictures are those in which a sentiment has dominated and in which
breadth and largeness of effect is strongest. Thus Meissonier's "Return
of Napoleon from Moscow," is a better picture than his "Napoleon III
surrounded by his staff in Sicily," which latter is only a marvellous
achievement at painting detail in the smallest possible size, and lacks
entirely the forceful composition of mass and light and shade of the
former. Thus does the "Spanish Marriage" of Fortuny outclass his
"Academici