_Kalon._ But, Christian, another artist with equal justness might use
Hellenic art as a means toward making happy discoveries; formatively,
there is nothing in it that is not both beautiful and perfect; and
beautiful things, rainbow-like, are once and for ever beautiful; and
the contemplation and study of its dignified, graceful, and truthful
embodiments--which, by common consent, it only is allowed to possess
in an eminent and universal degree--is full as likely to awaken in
the mind of its student as high revelations of wisdom, and cause him
to bear to earth as many perfections for man, as ever the study of
pre-Raffaelle art can reveal or give, through its votary.
_Christian._ But beautiful things, to be beautiful in the highest
degree, like the rainbow, must have a spiritual as well as a physical
voice. Lovely as it is, it is not the arch of colours that glows in
the heavens of our hearts; what does, is the inner and invisible
sense for which it was set up of old by God, and of which its
many-hued form is only the outward and visible sign. Thus, beautiful
things alone, of themselves, are not sufficient for this task; to be
sufficient they must be as vital with soul as they are with shape. To
be formatively perfect is not enough; they must also be spiritually
perfect, and this not _locally_ but universally.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314