I. PRIDE OF SCIENCE II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE 49

going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”¹

§ 10. This, then, being the kind of truth with which art is exclusively concerned, how is such truth as this to be ascertained and accumulated? Evidently, and only, by perception and feeling. Never either by reasoning or report. Nothing must come between Nature and the artist’s sight; nothing between God and the artist’s soul. Neither calculation nor hearsay,-be it the most subtle of calculations, or the wisest of sayings,-may be allowed to come between the universe, and the witness which art bears to its visible nature. The whole value of that witness depends on its being eye-witness; the whole genuineness, acceptableness, and dominion of it depend on the personal assurance of the man who utters it. All its victory depends on the veracity of the one preceding word, “Vidi.”

The whole function of the artist in the world is to be a seeing and feeling creature; to be an instrument of such tenderness and sensitiveness, that no shadow, no hue, no line, no instantaneous and evanescent expression of the visible things around him, nor any of the emotions which they are capable of conveying to the spirit which has been given him, shall either be left unrecorded, or fade from the book of record. It is not his business either to think, to judge, to argue, or to know. His place is neither in the closet, nor on the bench, nor at the bar, nor in the library. They are for other men, and other work. He may think, in a by-way; reason, now and then, when he has nothing better to do; know, such fragments of knowledge as he can gather without stooping, or reach without pains; but none of these things are to be his care. The work of his life is to be two-fold only; to see, to feel.²

§ 11. Nay, but, the reader perhaps pleads with me, one

¹ [Psalm xix. 5, 6.]

² [With this passage, compare the chapter on a painter’s profession, printed as Appendix ii., in Vol. IV. p. 388.]

XI. D

[Version 0.04: March 2008]