a boat with a red and
yellow awning, which I had put into the most conspicuous corner of my
drawing. I declared this boat to be "necessary to the composition." My
father not the less objected, that he had never seen such a boat, either
at Como or elsewhere; and suggested that if I would make the lake look a
little more like water, I should be under no necessity of explaining its
nature by the presence of floating objects. I thought him at the time a
very simple person for his pains; but have since learned, and it is the
very gist of all practical matters, which, as professor of fine art, I
have now to tell you, that the great point in painting a lake is--to get
it to look like water.

125. So far, so good. We lay it down for a first principle, that our
graphic art, whether painting or sculpture, is to produce something
which shall look as like Nature as possible. But now we must go one step
farther, and say that it is to produce what shall look like Nature to
people who know what Nature is like! You see this is at once a great
restriction, as well as a great exaltation of our aim. Our business is
not to deceive the simple; but to deceive the wise! Here, for instance,
is a modern Italian print, representing, to the best of its power, St.
Cecilia, in a brilliantly realistic manner. And the fault of the work is
not in its earnest endeavour to show St. Cecilia in habit as she lived,
but in that the effort could only be successful with persons unaware of
the habit St. Cecilia lived in. And this condition of appeal only to the
wise increases the difficulty of imitative resemblance so greatly, that,
with only average skill or materials, we must surrender all hope of it,
and be content with an imperfect representation, true as far as it
reaches, and such as to excite the imagination of a wise beholder to
complete it; though falling very far short of what either he or we
should otherwise have desired. For instance, here is a suggestion, by
Sir Joshua Reynolds, of the general appearance of a British
Judge--requiring the imagination of a very wise beholder indeed, to fill
it up, or even at first to discover what it is meant for. Nevertheless,
it is better art than the Italian St. Cecilia, because the artist,
however little he may have done to represent his knowledge, does,
indeed, know altogether what a Judge is like, and appeals only to the
criticism of those who know also.

126. There must be, therefore, two degrees of truth to