interesting
and more important than silent ones. So again the lines in a crag which
mark its stratification, and how it has been washed and rounded by
water, or twisted and drawn out in fire, are more important, because
they tell more than the stains of the lichens which change year by year,
and the accidental fissures of frost or decomposition; not but that both
of these are historical, but historical in a less distinct manner, and
for shorter periods.

Sec. 2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
Tone, light and color are secondary.

Hence in general the truths of specific form are the first and most
important of all; and next to them, those truths of chiaroscuro which
are necessary to make us understand every quality and part of forms, and
the relative distances of objects among each other, and in consequence
their relative bulks. Altogether lower than these, as truths, though
often most important as beauties, stand all effects of chiaroscuro which
are productive merely of imitations of light and tone, and all effects
of color. To make us understand the _space_ of the sky, is an end worthy
of the artist's highest powers; to hit its particular blue or gold is an
end to be thought of when we have accomplished the first, and not till
then.

Sec. 3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.

Finally, far below all these come those particular accuraciesor tricks
of chiaroscuro which cause objects to look projecting from the canvas,
not worthy of the name of truths, because they require for their
attainment the sacrifice of all others; for not having at our disposal
the same intensity of light by which nature illustrates her objects, we
are obliged, if we would have perfect deception in one, to destroy its
relation to the rest. (Compare Sect. II. chap. V.) And thus he who
throws one object out of his picture, never lets the spectator into it.
Michael Angelo bids you follow his phantoms into the abyss of heaven,
but a modern French painter drops his hero out of the picture frame.

This solidity or projection then, is the very lowest truth that art can
give; it is the painting of mere matter, giving that as food for the eye
which is properly only the subject of touch; it can neither instruct nor
exalt, nor please except as jugglery; it addresses no sense of beauty
nor of power; and wherever it characterizes the general aim of a
picture, it is the sign and the evidence of the vil