326 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



beauty should be seen in one particular branch of art ; as no 

 one can be said to possess real taste for architecture who is 

 rapturously fond of one style alone, and sees no merit in any 

 other. 



The Beautiful is of all styles. But to judge of beauty in 

 art requires other perceptions besides those necessary for 

 judging of beauty in nature ; and any one may be able to 

 appreciate the latter without being capable of perceiving the 

 former. He may admire beauty in a woman, and yet be 

 unable to appreciate that of a statue, or a picture. Those 

 too who can judge of form may be, and often are, insensible 

 to the harmony of colour. Some persons, especially in Italy, 

 are gifted by nature with a greater perception of the beau- 

 tiful than others, and this gift may be greatly improved by 

 culture. Others, again, are deficient in, and are totally in- 

 capable of acquiring, it ; and it may be doubted whether any 

 one entirely devoid of the natural gift can acquire it. -To 

 judge of beauty in painting and sculpture requires a con- 

 siderable amount of study and habit; without which, the 

 highest style of art is never fully appreciated. The gene- 

 rality of mankind neither enjoy nor care for it; and it is 

 certain that the uneducated eye understands and welcomes 

 the most simple copies of every-day scenes. Drawing too' 

 is more intelligible to it than a coloured picture. Gro one 

 step farther, and you find that the ignorant peasant of 

 the Nile, who cannot distinguish, in one of our coloured 

 paintings, a man from a horse, and is puzzled by our shadows 

 and foreshortening, comprehends all the stiff figures of the 

 ancient tombs ; showing that to be the mode of representation 

 natural to the untutored draughtsman ; while the other 

 requires study and the cultivation of taste. 



92. It has been thought by some that the Greeks paid 



not only elevates the thoughts and harmonises the mind, but is a sort of homage 

 that we owe to the gifts of God, and the labours of man." ( The Student, p. 269.) 



