116 REALISM AND IDEALISM 



art, and what we mean by Idealism is the imaginative side. 

 A work of art, patient and flawless in its technical execution, 

 may at the same time be highly idealistic. 1 Conversely, a 

 slovenly and ignorant piece of technical workmanship may 

 have no imaginative qualities to recommend it. 2 The truth 

 to remember is that, whatever process the figurative artist 

 uses, and however ably he employs his symbols, he cannot 

 remain a merely faithful copyist. Even the most prosaic 

 or wilfully imitative craftsman adds something of his own 

 imagination to the copy he produces, and is thwarted in any 

 attempt to avoid this necessity by the fact that he has only 

 symbols to deal with, and his individual perceptive faculty to 

 see by. 



Ill 



We must not pause here in our analysis of what the 

 draughtsman brings of ideality to his work. I have tried to 

 show that the bare attempt by a human being to imitate what 

 he sees before him introduces of necessity the element of 

 mind into his transcript from nature. But no human being 

 stands alone in this world. His own particular mental quality 

 is influenced by the thought of his race and epoch. The 

 intellectual atmosphere in which he lives determines him. 

 He cannot help being to some extent the creature of his age, 

 the child of antecedent ages. Thus, in addition to the specific 

 quality introduced by the artist into his imitation of an object, 

 there are universal mental elements, tending towards idealism, 

 which affect the whole function of art in each race and each 

 epoch. Should sculptor or painter try to be merely imitative, 

 crudely realistic, he cannot succeed so well as the photo- 

 graphic camera does. Should he never so obstinately cling to 

 the art for art principle, he cannot avoid suggesting thoughts 

 good, bad, or indifferent, noble or ignoble, pure or foul 

 through the form his thinking brain and intelligent fingers 

 have evolved from studies of reality. Morever, artists, their 



1 Such work was that of Gian Bellini in his Madonna at the Frari. 



2 Such work was that of Giorgio Vasari in his frescoes on the Cupola 

 of the Duomo at Florence. 



