138 ON THE KELATION OF OPTICS TO PAINTING. 



tainly, rapidly, unequivocably, and with accuracy if it 

 is to produce a vivid and powerful impression. These 

 essentially are the points which I have sought to com- 

 prehend under the name of intelligibility of the work 

 of art. 



Then the peculiarities of the painters' technique 

 (Technik), to which physiological optical investigation 

 have led us, are often closely connected with the highest 

 problems of art. We may perhaps think that even the 

 last secret of artistic beauty that is, the wondrous 

 pleasure which we feel in its presence is essentially 

 based on the feeling of an easy, harmonic, vivid stream 

 of our conceptions, which, in spite of manifold changes, 

 flow towards a common object, bring to light laws 

 hitherto concealed, and allow us to gaze in the deepest 

 depths of sensation of our own nrindg. 



