s no steadying
function in the moral world, and must waver between caprice and
convention. Where something modest and genuine peeped out was in
portraiture, and also at times in that devotional sculpture in wood
which still responded to a native interest and consequently kept its
sincerity and colour. Pious images may be feeble in the extreme, but
they have not the weakness of being merely aesthetic. The purveyor of
church wares has a stated theme; he is employed for a purpose; and if he
has enough technical resource his work may become truly beautiful: which
is not to say that he will succeed if his conceptions are without
dignity or his style without discretion. There are good _Mater
dolorosas_; there is no good _Sacred Heart_.

[Sidenote: When men see groups and backgrounds they are natural
painters.]

It may happen, however, that people are not interested in subjects that
demand or allow reproduction in bulk. The isolated figure or simple
group may seem cold apart from its natural setting. In rendering an
action you may need to render its scene, if it is the circumstance that
gives it value rather than the hero. You may also wish to trace out the
action through a series of episodes with many figures. In the latter
case you might have recourse to a bas-relief, which, although durable,
is usually a thankless work; there is little in it that might not be
conveyed in a drawing with distinctness. As some artists, like Michael
Angelo, have carried the sculptor's spirit into painting, many more,
when painting is the prevalent and natural art, have produced carved
pictures. It may be said that any work is essentially a picture which is
conceived from a single quarter and meant to be looked at only in one
light. Objects in such a case need not be so truly apperceived and
appropriated as they would have to be in true sculpture. One aspect
suffices: the subject presented is not so much constructed as dreamt.

[Sidenote: Evolution of painting.]

The whole history of painting may be strung on this single thread--the
effort to reconstitute impressions, first the dramatic impression and
then the sensuous. A summary and symbolic representation of things is
all that at first is demanded; the point is to describe something
pictorially and recall people's names and actions. It is characteristic
of archaic painting to be quite discursive and symbolic; each figure is
treated separately and stuck side by side with the others upon a g