only he, the
undeceivable, could thoroughly understand such sculpture, and perfectly
delight in it.

129. And with this expression of the Greek ideal of sculpture, I wish
you to join the early Italian, summed in a single line by Dante--"non
vide me' di me, chi vide 'l vero." Read the twelfth canto of the
Purgatory, and learn that whole passage by heart; and if ever you chance
to go to Pistoja, look at La Robbia's colored porcelain bas-reliefs of
the seven works of Mercy on the front of the hospital there; and note
especially the faces of the two sick men--one at the point of death, and
the other in the first peace and long-drawn breathing of health after
fever--and you will know what Dante meant by the preceding line, "Morti
li morti, e i vivi paren vivi."

130. But now, may we not ask farther,--is it impossible for art such as
this, prepared for the wise, to please the simple also? Without entering
on the awkward questions of degree, how many the wise can be, or how
much men should know, in order to be rightly called wise, may we not
conceive an art to be possible, which would deceive _everybody_, or
everybody worth deceiving? I showed you at my First Lecture, a little
ringlet of Japan ivory, as a type of elementary bas-relief touched with
color; and in your rudimentary series you have a drawing, by Mr.
Burgess, of one of the little fishes enlarged, with every touch of the
chisel facsimiled on the more visible scale; and showing the little
black bead inlaid for the eye, which in the original is hardly to be
seen without a lens. You may, perhaps, be surprised when I tell you that
(putting the question of _subject_ aside for the moment, and speaking
only of the mode of execution and aim at resemblance,) you have there a
perfect example of the Greek ideal of method in sculpture. And you will
admit that, to the simplest person whom we could introduce as a critic,
that fish would be a satisfactory, nay, almost a deceptive, fish; while,
to any one caring for subtleties of art, I need not point out that every
touch of the chisel is applied with consummate knowledge, and that it
would be impossible to convey more truth and life with the given
quantity of workmanship.

131. Here is, indeed, a drawing by Turner, (Edu. 131), in which, with
some fifty times the quantity of labor, and far more highly educated
faculty of sight, the artist has expressed some qualities of luster and
color which only very wise persons indeed could p