first four lectures I gave
in the spring were wholly prefatory; and the following three only
defined for you methods of practice. To-day we begin the systematic
analysis and progressive study of our subject.

2. In general, the three great, or fine, Arts of Painting, Sculpture,
and Architecture, are thought of as distinct from the lower and more
mechanical formative arts, such as carpentry or pottery. But we cannot,
either verbally, or with any practical advantage, admit such
classification. How are we to distinguish painting on canvas from
painting on china?--or painting on china from painting on glass?--or
painting on glass from infusion of color into any vitreous substance,
such as enamel?--or the infusion of color into glass and enamel from
the infusion of color into wool or silk, and weaving of pictures in
tapestry, or patterns in dress? You will find that although, in
ultimately accurate use of the word, painting must be held to mean only
the laying of a pigment on a surface with a soft instrument; yet, in
broad comparison of the functions of Art, we must conceive of one and
the same great artistic faculty, as governing _every mode of disposing
colors in a permanent relation on, or in, a solid substance_; whether it
be by tinting canvas, or dyeing stuffs; inlaying metals with fused
flint, or coating walls with colored stone.

3. Similarly, the word 'Sculpture,'--though in ultimate accuracy it is
to be limited to the development of form in hard substances by cutting
away portions of their mass--in broad definition, must be held to
signify _the reduction of any shapeless mass of solid matter into an
intended shape_, whatever the consistence of the substance, or nature of
the instrument employed; whether we carve a granite mountain, or a piece
of box-wood, and whether we use, for our forming instrument, ax, or
hammer, or chisel, or our own hands, or water to soften, or fire to
fuse;--whenever and however we bring a shapeless thing into shape, we do
so under the laws of the one great art of Sculpture.

4. Having thus broadly defined painting and sculpture, we shall see that
there is, in the third place, a class of work separated from both, in a
specific manner, and including a great group of arts which neither, of
necessity, _tint_, nor for the sake of form merely, _shape_ the
substances they deal with; but construct or arrange them with a view to
the resistance of some external force. We construct, for instance, a