delivering at the ecole des Beaux Arts. The
first, on the Philosophy of Art, designated at the head of this paper,
is already accessible to the American reader; and translations of the
others are probably soon to follow. We shall for the present give a mere
synopsis of M. Taine's general views.

And first it must be determined what a work of art is. Leaving for a
while music and architecture out of consideration, it will be admitted
that poetry, painting, and sculpture have one obvious character in
common: they are arts of IMITATION. This, says Taine, appears at first
sight to be their essential character. It would appear that their great
object is to IMITATE as closely as possible. It is obvious that a statue
is intended to imitate a living man, that a picture is designed to
represent real persons in real attitudes, or the interior of a house, or
a landscape, such as it exists in nature. And it is no less clear that
a novel or drama endeavours to represent with accuracy real characters,
actions, and words, giving as precise and faithful an image of them as
possible. And when the imitation is incomplete, we say to the painter,
"Your people are too largely proportioned, and the colour of your trees
is false"; we tell the sculptor that his leg or arm is incorrectly
modelled; and we say to the dramatist, "Never has a man felt or thought
as your hero is supposed to have felt and thought."

This truth, moreover, is seen both in the careers of individual
artists, and in the general history of art. According to Taine, the
life of an artist may generally be divided into two parts. In the
first period, that of natural growth, he studies nature anxiously and
minutely, he keeps the objects themselves before his eyes, and strives
to represent them with scrupulous fidelity. But when the time for mental
growth ends, as it does with every man, and the crystallization of ideas
and impressions commences, then the mind of the artist is no longer
so susceptible to new impressions from without. He begins to nourish
himself from his own substance. He abandons the living model, and
with recipes which he has gathered in the course of his experience, he
proceeds to construct a drama or novel, a picture or statue. Now, the
first period, says Taine, is that of genuine art; the second is that of
mannerism. Our author cites the case of Michael Angelo, a man who was
one of the most colossal embodiments of physical and mental energy that
the world