ON THE RELATION OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO ART. 675 
to Conti’s question in Lessing’s “ Emilia Galotti”—whether Raphael, 
had he been born without hands, would not the less have been the 
greatest of painters. The photographie plate has been described as 
the true retina of the philosopher; and one might add, of the artist, if 
it were not unluckily almost color-blind. Uufortunately, theoretical 
reasons which experience will hardly contradict render it highly im- 
probable that the expectations still entertained by artists and the gen- 
eral public, with regard to photography in natural colors, will ever be 
realized. 
Whether photography does not act unfavorably on the reproductive 
arts, such as engraving, lithography, and woodcutting, by taking their 
place to an increasing extent, remains to be proved. Its fidelity is cer- 
tainly such as, in a certain sense, to lower the value of the original 
drawings of old masters, by making them common property. An exhibi- 
tion, arranged by one of our art-dealers several years ago, of the best 
engravings of the “ Madonna della Sedia,” together with a photograph 
from the original, first opened our eyes to the extent to which each 
master has embodied in his copy his own individual conception. But 
even were photography to cause such a retrogression in the reproduc- 
tive arts, of what importance would that be, compared to the immeasur- 
able services which, as a means of reproduction itself, it renders art, 
by disseminating the knowledge and enjoyment of artistic work of all 
kinds and periods? No one can fully estimate and appreciate what it 
has done to beautify and enrich our life, whose memory does not reach 
back into those, as it were, prehistoric times, ““‘when man did not yet 
travel by steam, write and speak by lightning, and paint with the sun- 
beam.” 
Is it eredible, after all this, that there can be any need of mentioning 
the benefits derived by art from the study of anatomy? Has not the 
“Gladiator” of the Palazzo Borghese given rise to the conjecture that 
there were anatomical mysteries among the Greek artists, as the only 
means by which they could have obtained such complete mastery of the 
nude? Was it not through incessant anatomical studies that Michael 
Angelo acquired the knowledge necessary for the unprecedented bold- 
ness of his attitudes and foreshortenings, which are still a source of ad- 
miration to anatomists such as Prof. Henke and Prof. von Briicke? 
Has not provision been made by all governments that methodically 
encourage art to afford to students an opportunity of training the eye on 
the dead subject to note what they will have to distinguish under the 
living skin? Have not three successive teachers, who afterwards be- 
came members of thisacademy, been intrusted with this important duty 
in Berlin? Finally, do we not possess excellent compendiums of anat- 
omy specially adapted to the use of artists? 
And yet the most renowned English art critic of the day, who in his 
country enjoys the reputation and veneration of a Lessing, and who 
lays down the law with even more assurance—Mr. John Ruskin— 
explicitly forbids his pupils the study of anatomy in his lectures on 
