ells himself, and it
should follow that the best art is that which represents most closely
and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek
painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down
to peck at, the other with his painting of a veil which deceived his
very rival. The imitative or "illusionist" picture pleads its case most
plausibly. A further experience of such pictures, however, fails to
bring the beholder beyond his simple admiration of the painter's skill;
and that skill, he comes gradually to realize, does not differ
essentially from the adroitness of the juggler who keeps a billiard
ball, a chair, and a silk handkerchief rotating from hand to hand.

Conscious, then, of a new demand, of an added interest to be
satisfied, the amateur of pictures turns from the imitative canvas to
those paintings which appeal more widely to his familiar experience.
Justly, he does not here forgo altogether his delight in the painter's
cunning of hand, only he requires further that the subjects
represented shall be pleasing. It must be a subject whose meaning he
can recognize at once: a handsome or a strong portrait, a familiar
landscape, some little incident which tells its own story. The
spectator is now attracted by those pictures which rouse a train of
agreeable associations. He stops before a canvas representing a bit
of rocky coast, with the ocean tumbling in exhilaratingly. He
recognizes the subject and finds it pleasing; then he wonders where
the picture was painted. Turning to his catalogue, he reads: "37. On
the Coast of Maine." "Oh, yes," he says to himself, "I was on the
coast of Maine last summer, and I remember what a glorious time I
had sitting on the rocks of an afternoon, with some book or other
which the ocean was too fine to let me read. I like that picture." If
the title had read "Massachusetts Coast," it is to be feared he would
not have liked the canvas quite so well. The next picture which he
notices shows, perhaps, a stately woman sumptuously attired. It is
with a slight shock of disappointment that the visitor finds recorded
in his catalogue: "41. Portrait of a Lady." He could see that much for
himself. He hoped it was going to be the painter's mother or
somebody's wife,--a person he ought to know about. But the pictures
which appeal to him most surely are those which tell some little
story,--"The Lovers," "The Boy leaving Home," "The Wreck." Here
the subject, touching s