IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARTISAN AND ARTIST. 331 



then to tell tbeui tliat these wall paintings are done on a false principle, 

 because they are good representations of natural objects, and not merely 

 conventional drawings, how are we consistent? And if you tell a young- 

 man who designs patterns for carpets that there must be nothing there 

 which would not be, naturally, in such a position — that there must be no 

 sky or flowers there — then you go to make it a mere pavement and noth- 

 ing better. I should say that the real carpet should take the place of 

 the ancient mosaic. The ancients thought it not amiss to represent whole 

 scenes on their pavement, with sky and rivers, men and horses; and Pliny 

 tells us there were many celebrated men for this sort of work in Greece j 

 but the most celebrated of all was Sosias ; and he says among his other 

 works at Pergamus there was a remarkable one which was called ''The 

 Unswei)t House." It was a representation which certainly does not give 

 us a very good idea of cleanliness of domestic habits — of a floor on which 

 all sorts of refuse had been left to lie about, fragments of meat, and the 

 shells of crawfish, and everything which untidy people might leave after 

 their meals. Such were the notions the ancients had of designs. I 

 should, therefore, be inclined to fear that if toe began to deal lo'itJi art 

 2ipon a too confined basis, and on principles which belong only to one 

 period of the history of art, and if we now insist on their being made the 

 sole basis of artistic education, we shall produce cramped and narrow- 

 minded artists, and never enable them to take advantage of the great 

 classical patterns to improve their taste. 



In concluding, I think among the greatest errors that language has 

 imposed upon us, there is none more remarkable than the sort of antag- 

 onism which is established in common language as between nature and 

 art. We speak of art as being, in a certain manner, the rival of nature 

 and opposed to it ; we contrast them — we speak of the superiority of 

 nature, and depreciate art as compared with it. On the other hand, 

 what is art but the effort that is made by human sJcill to seize upon the trans- 

 itory features of nature, to give them the stamp of perpetuity f If we 

 study nature, we see that in her general laws she is unchangeable ; tbe 

 year goes on in its course, and day after day pass magnificently through 

 the same revolutions. But there is not one single moment in which 

 either nature, or anything that belongs to her, is stationary. The earth, 

 the planets, and the sun and moon, are not for any instant in exactly 

 the same relation mutually as they were in another instant. The face 

 of nature is constantly changing; and what is it that preserves that for 

 us but art, which is not the rival, but the child, as iccll as the handmaid, of 

 nature f You find, when you watch the setting sun, how beautiful and 

 how bright for an instant! then how it fades away! the sky and sea are 

 covered with darkness, and the departed light is reflected, as it had 

 been just now upon the water, still upon your mind. In that one evan- 

 escent moment a Claude or a Stanfield dips his })encil in the glowing 

 sky, and transfers its hue to his canvas ; and ages after, by the lamp 

 of night, or in the brightness of the morning, we can contemplate that 

 evening scene of nature, and again renew in ourselves all the emotions 



