difference made by each touch is more and more
imperceptible as the work approaches completion. Consequently, the ratio
between the means employed and the effect produced is constantly
decreasing, and therefore the least sensation of power is received from
the most perfect work.

Sec. 7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art.

It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about imperfect
art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must always be
wanting in its perfection; and that there are sources of pleasure in the
hasty sketch and rough hewn block, which are partially wanting in the
tinted canvas and the polished marble. But it is nevertheless wrong to
prefer the sensation of power to the intellectual perception of it.
There is in reality greater power in the completion than in the
commencement; and though it be not so manifest to the senses, it ought
to have higher influence on the mind; and therefore in praising pictures
for the ideas of power they convey, we must not look to the keenest
sensation, but to the highest estimate, accompanied with as much of the
sensation as is compatible with it; and thus we shall consider those
pictures as conveying the highest ideas of power which attain the most
_perfect_ end with the slightest possible means; not, observe, those in
which, though much has been done with little, all has not been done, but
from the picture, in which _all_ has been done, and yet not a touch
thrown away. The quantity of work in the sketch is necessarily less in
proportion to the effect obtained than in the picture; but yet the
picture involves the greater power, if out of all the additional labor
bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost.

Sec. 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.

For instance, there are few drawings of the present day that involve
greater sensations of power than those of Frederick Tayler. Every dash
tells, and the quantity of effect obtained is enormous, in proportion to
the apparent means. But the effect obtained is not complete. Brilliant,
beautiful, and right, as a sketch, the work is still far from
perfection, as a drawing. On the contrary, there are few drawings of the
present day that bear evidence of more labor bestowed, or more
complicated means employed, than those of John Lewis. The result does
not, at first, so much convey an impression of inherent power as of
prolonged exertion; but the result is complete. Water-c