Again considered, the Ideal, being relative as well as the Beautiful, of
which it is the exuberance, we must remember that the word is far from
corresponding to an idea of absolute beauty. Thus the Ideal of an
ordinary taste is not so high as that of a person whose standard of
beauty is superior, and the two will be very distant from the image
conceived by the pen, the chisel or the brush of a great artist. In many
cases the Ideal is nothing but a searching for the intention of nature,
obliterated by the circumstances and accidents of life. Then the task of
the artist should be to reestablish the type in his logic--a vulgar face
may be portrayed by a skilful brush--and, while preserving its features,
there may be put into it the culture of intellect and noble sentiments.
An artist, for instance, will see in a woman, whom time has tried,
certain elements of beauty which enable him to portray her nearly as she
was at the age of twenty years. He should be able to divine in the young
girl, according to the normal development of her features, her
appearance at the complete unfolding of her beauty. Yes; in these
different cases the artist shall have idealized, since he shall have
comprehended, penetrated, interpreted and rectified nature. Still, he
may not yet have attained to the comprehension of perfect beauty, such,
at least, as human emotion and intellect can conceive, and such as we
love to imagine as inhabiting the superior spheres of the universe of
which we know nothing further than the dictate of our reason, namely,
that they are inhabited by beings more or less like ourselves.
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