re-piece at
whatever epoch. But such pictures as Etty's, or Page's Venus, where the
beauty of the human body is the point of attraction, are flat
anachronisms, and for this reason, not from any prudishness of the
public, can never excite a hearty enthusiasm. From the sixteenth century
downwards all pictures become more and more _tableaux de genre_,--the
piece is not described by the nominal subject, but only the class to
which it belongs, leaving its special character wholly undetermined. And
in proportion as the action and the detail are dwelt upon, the more
evident is it that the theme is only a pretence. Martyrdoms, when there
was any fervency of faith in the martyrs, were very abstract. A hint of
sword or wheel sufficed. The saints and the angels, as long as men
believed in them, carried their witness in their faces, with only some
conventional indication of their history. As soon as direct
representation is aimed at and the event portrayed as an historical
fact, it is proof enough that all direct interest is gone and nothing
left but the technical problem. The martyrdoms are vulgar
execution-scenes,--the angels, men sprawling upon clouds. Michel Angelo
was a noble, devout man, but it is clear that the God he prayed to was
not the God he painted.

This essential disparity between idea and representation is the weak
side of Art, plastic and pictorial; but because it is essential it is
not felt by the artist as defect. His genius urges him to all advance
that is possible within the limits of his Art, but not to transcend it.
It will be in vain to exhort him to unite the ancient piety to the
modern knowledge. If he listen to the exhortation, he may be a good
critic, but he is no painter. He must be absorbed in what he sees to the
exclusion of everything else; impartiality is a virtue to all the world
except him. There will always be a onesidedness; either the conception
or the embodying of it halts, is only partially realized; some
incompleteness, some mystery, some apparent want of coincidence between
form and meaning is a necessity to the artist, and if he does not find
it, he will invent it. Hence the embarrassment of some of the English
Pre-Raphaelitists, particularly in dealing with the human form. They
have no hesitation in pursuing into still further minuteness the literal
delineation of inanimate objects, draperies, etc.; but they shrink from
giving full life to their figures, not from a slavish adherence to th