ver their vanity, and
pretend to some profitableness of purpose in what they did. They would
not openly ask of their hearers--Did you think my sermon ingenious, or
my language poetical? They would early understand that they were not
paid for being ingenious, nor called to be so, but to preach truth; that
if they happened to possess wit, eloquence, or originality, these would
appear and be of service in due time, but were not to be continually
sought after or exhibited; and if it should happen that they had them
not, they might still be serviceable pastors without them.

175. Not so with the unhappy artist. No one expects any honest or useful
work of him; but everyone expects him to be ingenious. Originality,
dexterity, invention, imagination, everything is asked of him except
what alone is to be had for asking--honesty and sound work, and the due
discharge of his function as a painter. What function? asks the reader
in some surprise. He may well ask; for I suppose few painters have any
idea what their function is, or even that they have any at all.

176. And yet surely it is not so difficult to discover. The faculties,
which when a man finds in himself, he resolves to be a painter, are, I
suppose, intenseness of observation and facility of imitation. The man
is created an observer and an imitator; and his function is to convey
knowledge to his fellow-men, of such things as cannot be taught
otherwise than ocularly. For a long time this function remained a
religious one: it was to impress upon the popular mind the reality of
the objects of faith, and the truth of the histories of Scripture, by
giving visible form to both. That function has now passed away, and none
has as yet taken its place. The painter has no profession, no purpose.
He is an idler on the earth, chasing the shadows of his own fancies.

177. But he was never meant to be this. The sudden and universal
Naturalism, or inclination to copy ordinary natural objects, which
manifested itself among the painters of Europe, at the moment when the
invention of printing superseded their legendary labors, was no false
instinct. It was misunderstood and misapplied, but it came at the right
time, and has maintained itself through all kinds of abuse; presenting,
in the recent schools of landscape, perhaps only the first fruits of its
power. That instinct was urging every painter in Europe at the same
moment to his true duty--_the faithful representation of all objects of