ANATOMY AND ART. 
425 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a strong passage denying the pos¬ 
sibility of anything superhuman in art, ends thus: “ We are 
forced to confine our conceptions, even of heaven itself and 
its inhabitants, to what we see in this world.” He might 
have added that the inventions of Christian art may take 
rank in their absurdity with the grotesque monsters of 
classic lore. 
Ideal beauty on theoretic grounds reminds one of the end¬ 
less geometric schemes of human proportion. They produce 
an exact and symmetrical result, but as lifeless and unin¬ 
spiring as a composite photograph. The Grecian sculptor, 
ignorant of dissection, was master of the anatomy of form. 
He sought to attain the highest ideal beauty not by any 
fanciful theory, but by selecting the most perfect type of 
ever}^ feature or limb. 
The story may not be true that “ the statue which en¬ 
chants the world ” was really composed from “ the mingled 
beauties of exulting Greece,” but the principle involved is 
unquestionably correct. The sculptor Rinehart stated to a 
friend that his Clytie was the result of a study of twenty of 
the finest models in Rome. 
It is told of a young painter that before beginning to 
work he knelt down and prayed to be delivered from his 
model. His aim was to idealize, not to copy. And with 
the highest success of the artist in embodying his ideal 
comes to the beholder, after long gazing, an uneasy feeling 
of desire for something still loftier. “ The loveliest Madon¬ 
nas of Christian art,” said Ruskin, “ fall short of their due 
power if they do not make their beholders sick at heart to 
see the living Virgin.” 
There are some famous pictures which represent the teach¬ 
ing of anatomy, and in these the obligations of anatomy and 
art may be fairly considered to be reciprocal. 
Few persons can have visited The Hague without seeing 
and admiring Rembrandt’s painting of “ The lesson of anat¬ 
omy.” It represents Professor Tulp, the friend and protector 
of the artist, demonstrating the muscles of the forearm before 
