50 
no doubt that if an artist were to take the Vic¬ 
toria Lily, and project all the multifarious parts of 
it, of different forms, upon a plane surface, and make 
such changes in it as would be perfectly allowable 
for such a purpose, consistently with the structure of 
plants, he would obtain an elaborate pattern, in which 
taste could find no fault, and in which unintelligent 
surprise would find much to admire. 
97. In conclusion, I would ask you to bear in mind 
these axioms; that the nearer nature is approached, 
the nearer we approach to that which is beautiful in 
form. Of truth, then, the artist must never lose 
sight; truth must be paramount under all circum¬ 
stances. But truth may have more meanings than 
one; we may have absolute truth or conventional 
truth. Truth, moreover, is not to be confounded 
with reality. A monster is truth ; the most deformed 
of human beings is a thing which may have existence, 
but it is not a true representation of what occurs in 
the human figure; it only represents an exceptional 
state. 
98. In the sense in which truth is used, in ques¬ 
tions of art, absolute truth must always be observed in 
pictorial representation. That I take to be a funda¬ 
mental principle; for unless minute details are in- 
ti’oduced into the delineation of plants, as well as of 
animals, we may have rude representations indeed, 
but nothing to satisfy the eye of intelligence. 
99. With regard to conventional designs, general 
truth is quite sufficient; and provided the principle of 
symmetry, equipoise, and those other circumstances 
which have been so much dwelt upon in these Lec¬ 
tures, are sufficiently regarded, it matters little in 
what particular manner the representations of vege- 
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