are two definite ethical characters in all engraved
work. It is Athletic; and it is Resolute. Add one more; that it is
Obedient;--in their infancy the nurse, but in their youth the slave, of
the higher arts; servile, both in the mechanism and labor of it, and in
its function of interpreting the schools of painting as superior to
itself.

And this relation to the higher arts we will study at the source of
chief power in all the normal skill of Christendom, Florence; and
chiefly, as I said, in the work of one Florentine master, Sandro
Botticelli.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "Inaugural Series," "Aratra Pentelici," and "Eagle's Nest."

[B] My inaugural series of seven lectures (now published uniform in size
with this edition. 1890).

[C] Compare Inaugural Lectures, Sec. 144.

LECTURE II.

THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE.

39. From what was laid before you in my last lecture, you must now be
aware that I do not mean, by the word 'engraving,' merely the separate
art of producing plates from which black pictures may be printed.

I mean, by engraving, the art of producing decoration on a surface by
the touches of a chisel or a burin; and I mean by its relation to other
arts, the subordinate service of this linear work, in sculpture, in
metal work, and in painting; or in the representation and repetition of
painting.

And first, therefore, I have to map out the broad relations of the arts
of sculpture, metal work, and painting, in Florence, among themselves,
during the period in which the art of engraving was distinctly connected
with them.[D]

40. You will find, or may remember, that in my lecture on Michael Angelo
and Tintoret I indicated the singular importance, in the history of art,
of a space of forty years, between 1480, and the year in which Raphael
died, 1520. Within that space of time the change was completed, from the
principles of ancient, to those of existing, art;--a manifold change,
not definable in brief terms, but most clearly characterized, and easily
remembered, as the change of conscientious and didactic art, into that
which proposes to itself no duty beyond technical skill, and no object
but the pleasure of the beholder. Of that momentous change itself I do
not purpose to speak in the present course of lectures; but my endeavor
will be to lay before you a rough chart of the course of the arts in
Florence up to the time when it took place; a chart in