, one of the worst of
the realists, smites the imagination on the mouth, and bids it be
silent, while he sets to work to paint his oak of the right green, and
fill up its foliage laboriously with jagged touches, and furrow the bark
all over its branches, so as, if possible, to deceive us into supposing
that we are looking at a real oak; which, indeed, we had much better do
at once, without giving any one the trouble to deceive us in the matter.

Sec. XXV. Now, the truly great artist neither leaves the imagination to
itself, like Sir Joshua, nor insults it by realization, like Hobbima,
but finds it continual employment of the happiest kind. Having summoned
it by his vigorous first touches, he says to it: "Here is a tree for
you, and it is to be an oak. Now I know that you can make it green and
intricate for yourself, but that is not enough: an oak is not only green
and intricate, but its leaves have most beautiful and fantastic forms
which I am very sure you are not quite able to complete without help; so
I will draw a cluster or two perfectly for you, and then you can go on
and do all the other clusters. So far so good: but the leaves are not
enough; the oak is to be full of acorns, and you may not be quite able
to imagine the way they grow, nor the pretty contrast of their glossy
almond-shaped nuts with the chasing of their cups; so I will draw a
bunch or two of acorns for you, and you can fill up the oak with others
like them. Good: but that is not enough; it is to be a bright day in
summer, and all the outside leaves are to be glittering in the sunshine
as if their edges were of gold: I cannot paint this, but you can; so I
will really gild some of the edges nearest you,[52] and you can turn
the gold into sunshine, and cover the tree with it. Well done: but still
this is not enough; the tree is so full foliaged and so old that the
wood birds come in crowds to build there; they are singing, two or three
under the shadow of every bough. I cannot show you them all; but here is
a large one on the outside spray, and you can fancy the others inside."

Sec. XXVI. In this way the calls upon the imagination are multiplied as
a great painter finishes; and from these larger incidents he may proceed
into the most minute particulars, and lead the companion imagination to
the veins in the leaves and the mosses on the trunk, and the shadows of
the dead leaves upon the grass, but always multiplying thoughts, or
subjects of thought, n