'
Is this so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we
be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink
truth dry?"
It has been said that there is presumption in this movement of the
modern school, a want of deference to established authorities, a
removing of ancient landmarks. This is best answered by the
profession that nothing can be more humble than the pretension to the
observation of facts alone, and the truthful rendering of them. If we
are not to depart from established principles, how are we to advance
at all? Are we to remain still? Remember, no thing remains still;
that which does not advance falls backward. That this movement is an
advance, and that it is of nature herself, is shown by its going
nearer to truth in every object produced, and by its being guided by
the very principles the ancient painters followed, as soon as they
attained the mere power of representing an object faithfully. These
principles are now revived, not from them, though through their
example, but from nature herself.
That the earlier painters came nearer to fact, that they were less of
the art, artificial, cannot be better shown than by the statement of
a few examples from their works. There is a magnificent Niello work
by an unknown Florentine artist, on which is a group of the Saviour
in the lap of the Virgin.
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