able nature, no more than Caravaggio saw, or in
the Antique no more than has been comprehended by David? The fact is,
that all artists are primarily divided into the two great groups of
Imitators and Suggesters--their falling into one or other being
dependent partly on disposition, and partly on the matter they have to
subdue--(thus Perugino imitates line by line with penciled gold, the
hair which Nino Pisano can only suggest by a gilded marble mass, both
having the will of representation alike). And each of these classes is
again divided into the faithful and unfaithful imitators and suggesters;
and that is a broad question of blind eye and hard heart, or seeing eye
and serious heart, always co-existent; and then the faithful imitators
and suggesters--artists proper, are appointed, each with his peculiar
gift and affection, over the several orders and classes of things
natural, to be by them illumined and set forth.

49. And that is God's doing and distributing; and none is rashly to be
thought inferior to another, as if by his own fault; nor any of them
stimulated to emulation, and changing places with others, although their
allotted tasks be of different dignities, and their granted instruments
of different keenness; for in none of them can there be a perfection or
balance of all human attributes;--the great colorist becomes gradually
insensible to the refinements of form which he at first intentionally
omitted; the master of line is inevitably dead to many of the delights
of color; the study of the true or ideal human form is inconsistent with
the love of its most spiritual expressions. To one it is intrusted to
record the historical realities of his age; in him the perception of
character is subtle, and that of abstract beauty in measure diminished;
to another, removed to the desert, or inclosed in the cloister, is
given, not the noting of things transient, but the revealing of things
eternal. Ghirlandajo and Titian painted men, but could not angels;
Duccio and Angelico painted Saints, but could not senators. One is
ordered to copy material form lovingly and slowly--his the fine finger
and patient will: to another are sent visions and dreams upon the
bed--his the hand fearful and swift, and impulse of passion irregular
and wild. We may have occasion further to insist upon this great
principle of the incommunicableness and singleness of all the highest
powers; but we assert it here especially, in opposition to the id