Pheidias surpasses the
sculptors of Antinous, that one Madonna of Gian Bellini is worth all the
pictures of the younger Palma, and that Dossi's portrait of the
Ferrarese jester is better worth having than the whole of Annibale
Caracci's Galleria Farnesina.[235] It will even lead us to select for
models those works which bear the mark of adolescence or vigorous
maturity, as supplying more fruitful sources for our own artistic
education.

[Footnote 235: The great picture by Dosso Dossi, to which I have
alluded, is in the Modenese gallery.]

Nevertheless, not in evolution, but in man's soul, his intellectual and
moral nature, must be sought those abiding relations which constitute
sound art, and are the test of right aesthetic judgment. These are such
as truth, simplicity, sobriety, love, grace, patience, modesty,
thoughtfulness, repose, health, vigor, brain-stuff, dignity of
imagination, lucidity of vision, purity, and depth of feeling. Wherever
the critic finds these--whether it be in Giotto at the dawn or in Guido
at the evensong of Italian painting, in Homer or Theocritus at the two
extremes of Greek poetry--he will recognize the work as ranking with
those things from which the soul draws nourishment. At the same time, he
may not neglect the claims of craftsmanship. Each art has its own
vehicle of expression, and exacts some innate capacity for the use of
that vehicle from the artist. Therefore the critic must be also
sufficiently versed in technicalities to give them their due value. It
can, however, be laid down, as a general truth, that while immature or
awkward workmanship is compatible with aesthetic excellence, technical
dexterity, however skillfully applied, has never done anything for a
soulless painter.

Criticism, furthermore, implies judgment; and that judgment must be
adjusted to the special nature of the thing criticised. Art is different
from ethics, from the physical world, from sensuality, however refined.
It will not, therefore, in the long run do for the critic of an art to
apply the same rules as the moralist, the naturalist, or the hedonist.
It will not do for him to be contented with edification, or
differentiation of species, or demonstrable delightfulness as the
test-stone of artistic excellence. All art is a presentation of the
inner human being, his thought and feeling, through the medium of
beautiful symbols in form, color, and sound. Our verdict must therefore
be determined by the amount