haucer, or
Shakespeare, or Josh Billings, at his own good pleasure. If he conveys
an intelligible idea he has accomplished a result the value of which
is just in proportion to the quality of that idea.

To continue this parallel, it may be said that extreme realism is the
use of too many words in a sentence and too many sentences in a
paragraph; extreme impressionism, the use of too few. Neither,
however, is fundamental, and art can be good, bad, or indifferent
containing each or combining both.

Realism, or, to express it more clearly, detailism, is the realizing
of the whole subject-matter or motive of a picture in exact detail.
Impressionism is the generalizing of the subject-matter as a whole and
the expression of only its salient features.

The extreme realist or detailist of the Ruskin type has for years been
insisting that a spade was a spade and should be painted to look like
a spade; that a spade was not a spade until every nail in the handle
and every crack in the blade became apparent.

The more advanced would have insisted on not only the fibre in the
wood, but the brand on the other side of the blade, had it been
physically possible to show it.

In absolute contrast to this, there lived a man at Barbizon who
maintained that a spade was not a spade at all, but merely a mass of
shadow against a low twilight sky, in the hands of a figure who with
uncovered head listens reverently; that the spade is merely a symbol
of labor; that he used it as he would use a word necessary to express
a sentence, which would be unintelligible without it, and that it was
perfectly immaterial to him, and should be to the world, whether it
was a spade or a shovel so long as the soft twilight, and the reverent
figures wearied with the day's work, and the flat waste of field
stretching away to the little village spire on the dim horizon line
told the story of human suffering and patience and toil, as with
folded hands they listened to the soft cadence of the angelus.

Which of these two methods of expression is correct--Ruskin or Millet?
Are there any laws which govern, or is it a matter of taste, fancy, or
feeling? Is it a matter of individuality? If so, which individual by
his methods tells us the most truths? Let us endeavor to analyze.

I whirl through a mountain gorge and catch a glance through a
car-window--an impression. In the darkness of the tunnel it remains
with me. I see the great mass of white cumuli and against