sused in the general parlance respecting art. Nothing is
more common than to hear divisions of art into "form, composition,
and color," or "light and shade and composition," or "sentiment and
composition," or it matters not what else and composition; the
speakers in each case attaching a perfectly different meaning to the
word, generally an indistinct one, and always a wrong one.
Composition is, in plain English, "putting together," and it means
the putting together of lines, of forms, of colors, of shades, or of
ideas. Painters compose in color, compose in thought, compose in
form, and compose in effect: the word being of use merely in order
to express a scientific, disciplined, and inventive arrangement of
any of these, instead of a merely natural or accidental one.

[61] Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to
arrange lines and colors nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by
the eye and mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the
chapter on Roman Renaissance (Vol. III. Chap. II.) for this
distinction.

[62] "Earlier," that is to say, pre-Raphaelite ages. Men of this
stamp will praise Claude, and such other comparatively debased
artists; but they cannot taste the work of the thirteenth century.

[63] Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of
resolution in the soul.

[64] I reserve for another place the full discussion of this
interesting subject, which here would have led me too far; but it
must be noted, in passing, that this vulgar Purism, which rejects
truth, not because it is vicious, but because it is humble, and
consists not in choosing what is good, but in disguising what is
rough, extends itself into every species of art. The most definite
instance of it is the dressing of characters of peasantry in an
opera or ballet scene; and the walls of our exhibitions are full of
works of art which "exalt nature" in the same way, not by revealing
what is great in the heart, but by smoothing what is coarse in the
complexion. There is nothing, I believe, so vulgar, so hopeless, so
indicative of an irretrievably base mind, as this species of Purism.
Of healthy Purism carried to the utmost endurable length in this
direction, exalting the heart first, and the features with it,
perhaps the most characteristic instance I can give is Stothard's
vi