APPENDIX. IO5 



the artist had only need, for its proper accomplishment, 

 to rely upon his eyes for the rectification of a false out- 

 line, which existed only in his imagination. 



Camper appears long ago to have resolved this 

 question, by declaring that the beautiful, which is 

 supposed to exist in the human and other animal 

 structures, solely depends upon a mutual congruity 

 established upon the authority of a few individuals. 



The aptitude to seize upon and appreciate the 

 beautiful, which is usually called sentiment or taste, 

 derives a certain modification of the spirit, which can 

 only be attributed, as a general rule, to education and 

 the habit of contemplating the best artistic productions ; 

 and it is, in fact, by reason of the knowledge which we 

 have acquired by study and instruction. Here, Camper 

 relies upon Winkelmann, who confirms his appreciation 

 in this respect by writing : — 



" An honest and well-considered education causes 

 the birth of the sentiment of the beautiful and imparts 

 premature scope to it." 



Topfer, the refined Art critic of Geneva, calls draw- 

 ing " the imitation of the form," but he denies that its 

 strict copy is the end and constitutes the principal merit 

 of drawing, this becoming only an integral portion of 

 Art so far as it proceeds in some degree from the thought 

 of the artist, and not so far as it is the materially exact 

 copy, mechanically accurate, of natural objects, as it is 

 understood by geometry, which traces the forms in their 

 absolute accuracy, instead of which the artist should only 

 seize upon the relative proportions, the general character 

 of the object, the translation by the thought of what the 

 eye perceives, which is tantamount to saying that Art 

 only embellishes the nature that is imitated, so far as the 

 artist perfectly possesses in himself all the knowledge 

 essential for the rectification and beautiful rendering in 

 his copy of what is defective in the model. 



This was often written by specialists in the last 

 century. It is true that from the point of view of the 

 form of the horse the instruction was absolutely 

 erroneous ; this was probably the cause of the negligence 

 of the old masters who, whilst giving to the animal re- 

 presented in a picture the importance of a blot, only 



