ge interior, one of the thousands which within
the last two months[25] have been laid desolate in unhappy France. Every
accessory in the painting is of value--the fireside, the tiled floor,
the vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from the roof. But
not one of these accessories would have been admissible in sculpture.
You must carve nothing but what has life. "Why?" you probably feel
instantly inclined to ask me.--You see the principle we have got,
instead of being blunt or useless, is such an edged tool that you are
startled the moment I apply it. "Must we refuse every pleasant accessory
and picturesque detail, and petrify nothing but living creatures?" Even
so: I would not assert it on my own authority. It is the Greeks who say
it, but whatever they say of sculpture, be assured, is true.

112. That then is the first law--you must see Pallas as the Lady of
Life; the second is, you must see her as the Lady of Wisdom; or [Greek:
sophia]--and this is the chief matter of all. I cannot but think that,
after the considerations into which we have now entered, you will find
more interest than hitherto in comparing the statements of Aristotle, in
the Ethics, with those of Plato in the Polity, which are authoritative
as Greek definitions of goodness in art, and which you may safely hold
authoritative as constant definitions of it. You remember, doubtless,
that the [Greek: sophia], or [Greek: arete pechnes], for the sake of
which Phidias is called [Greek: sophos] as a sculpture, and Polyclitus
as an image-maker, Eth. 6. 7. (the opposition is both between ideal and
portrait sculpture, and between working in stone and bronze), consists
in the "[Greek: nous ton timiotaton t e physei]," "the mental
apprehension of the things that are most honorable in their nature."
Therefore, what is indeed most lovely, the true image-maker will most
love; and what is most hateful, he will most hate; and in all things
discern the best and strongest part of them, and represent that
essentially, or, if the opposite of that, then with manifest detestation
and horror. That is his art wisdom; the knowledge of good and evil, and
the love of good, so that you may discern, even in his representation of
the vilest thing, his acknowledgment of what redemption is possible for
it, or latent power exists in it; and, contrariwise, his sense of its
present misery. But, for the most part, he will idolize, and force us
also to idolize, whatever is living,