an ignoble presentation of terror--the superb tree, which may almost be
called an actor in the drama, might have been painted with even greater
minuteness, though not perhaps with equal effect upon us, if it had
arrested our attention by its details--the dying martyr and the noble
assassin might have been made equally real in more vulgar types--but
the triumph achieved by Titian is that the mind is filled with a vision
of poetic beauty which is felt to be real. An equivalent reality,
without the ennobling beauty, would have made the picture a fine piece
of realistic art. It is because of this poetic way of seeing things
that one painter will give a faithful representation of a very common
scene which shall nevertheless affect all sensitive minds as ideal,
whereas another painter will represent the same with no greater
fidelity, but with a complete absence of poetry. The greater the
fidelity, the greater will be the merit of each representation; for if
a man pretends to represent an object, he pretends to represent it
accurately: the only difference is what the poetical or prosaic mind
sees in the object.

Of late years there has been a reaction against conventionalism which
called itself Idealism, in favour of DETAILISM which calls itself
Realism. As a reaction it has been of service; but it has led to much
false criticism, and not a little false art, by an obtrusiveness of
Detail and a preference for the Familiar, under the misleading notion
of adherence to Nature. If the words Nature and Natural could be
entirely banished from language about Art there would be some chance of
coming to a rational philosophy of the subject; at present the
excessive vagueness and shiftiness of these terms cover any amount of
sophism. The pots and pans of Teniers and Van Mieris are natural; the
passions and humours of Shakspeare and Moliere are natural; the angels
of Fra Angelico and Luini are natural; the Sleeping Fawn and Fates of