e most widely known of all his writings.
###

"Pray, Mr. Opie, may I ask you what you mix your colors with?" said a
brisk dilettante student to the great painter. "With brains, sir," was the
gruff reply--and the right one. It did not give much of information; it
did not expound the principles and rules of the art; but, if the inquirer
had the commodity referred to, it would awaken him; it would set him
agoing, athinking, and a-painting to good purpose. If he had not the
wherewithal, as was likely enough, the less he had to do with colors and
their mixture the better.

Many other artists, when asked such a question, would have either set
about detailing the mechanical composition of such and such colors, in
such and such proportions, rubbed up so and so; or perhaps they would (and
so much the better, but not the best) have shown him how they laid them
on; but even this would leave him at the critical point. Opie preferred
going to the quick and the heart of the matter: "With brains, sir."

Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a picture. He was
anxious to admire it, and he looked it over with a keen and careful but
favorable eye. "Capital composition; correct drawing; the color, tone,
chiaroscuro excellent; but--but--it wants--hang it, it wants--that!"
snapping his fingers; and, wanting "that," though it had everything else,
it was worth nothing.

Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of the Royal Academy,
having been preceded by a clever, talkative, scientific expounder of
aesthetics, who delighted to tell the young men how everything was done,
how to copy this, and how to express that. A student came up to the new
master, "How should I do this, sir?" "Suppose you try." Another, "What
does this mean, Mr. Etty?" "Suppose you look." "But I have looked."
"Suppose you look again."

And they did try, and they did look, and looked again; and they saw and
achieved what they never could have done had the how or the what
(supposing this possible, which it is not, in full and highest meaning)
been told them, or done for them; in the one case, sight and action were
immediate, exact, intense, and secure; in the other, mediate, feeble, and
lost as soon as gained.

NOTES.--Opie, John (b. 1761, d. 1807), was born in Wales, and was known as
the "Cornish wonder." He became celebrated as a portrait painter, but
afterwards devoted himself to historical subjects. He was professor of
painting at the Royal Aca