dern English painters provoked questions and excited conflicts in the
world of Art; they seldom reconciled anything among painters, critics,
and connoisseurs, too often incapable of a generalization, and therefore
incapable of a philosophy of Art. Neither Ruskin nor Hamerton has
created a philosophy of Art; they have but contributed invaluable
materials. Ruskin, like Buckle, indicated a plan for which no single
life is adequate.

The drift of Hamerton's Art criticism will best be appreciated in his
chapter on "The Relation between Photography and Painting," and that
which treats of transcendentalism in painting. We cannot forbear quoting
a few paragraphs from the former chapter. The force of the following is
obvious.

"Photography represents facts isolated from their natural companions,
and without any hint of their relation to the human mind.

"Now it is only the _unity of relation_ that can satisfy the artistic
sense, not isolated fragments; and therefore, so long as the artistic
sense remains in the human organization, the demand for pictures will
certainly continue.

"I wish I could make perfectly clear what is that _unity of relation_
which is so satisfactory to the artistic sense; but that, in these
limits, is impossible. It is enough to say here that any perfect "whole"
in a pictorial representation of Nature must include delicate colors and
beautiful forms, _all helping each other to the utmost_, like a chorus
of well-trained singers, and that in the arrangement of it all a great
human soul must manifest itself, just as the soul of Handel does in a
chorus from the 'Messiah.'

"But in the photograph we have only a fact or two clearly stated, but
not in their natural connection with other facts; far less their deeper
and more mysterious connection, which the genius of great imaginative
artists is alone able to apprehend.

"Therefore the division of labor likely to take place between
photography and painting is this: photography will record _isolated
facts_, of which an infinite number always need recording; painting will
concern itself with the _relations_ of associated truths and beauties.

"And let each keep to its own task. The photograph can never
successfully encroach on the province of painting; and henceforth let us
hope that painters will never again commit the rash imprudence of
attempting to intrude upon the peculiar domain of the photograph.

"In the few instances where photographers have attem