approach its conditions. Poetry, the most musical form of literature, is
its most artistic form. And in the greatest pictures form, colour, and
idea are united to thrill us with harmonies analogous to music.

The painter expresses his feelings through the representation of the
visible world of Nature, and through the representation of those
combinations of form and colour inspired in his imagination, that were
all originally derived from visible nature. If he fails from lack of
skill to make his representation convincing to reasonable people, no
matter how sublime has been his artistic intention, he will probably
have landed in the ridiculous. And yet, #so great is the power of
direction exercised by the emotions on the artist that it is seldom his
work fails to convey something, when genuine feeling has been the
motive#. On the other hand, the painter with no artistic impulse who
makes a laboriously commonplace picture of some ordinary or pretentious
subject, has equally failed as an artist, however much the skilfulness
of his representations may gain him reputation with the unthinking.

The study, therefore, of the #representation of visible nature# and of
#the powers of expression possessed by form and colour# is the object of
the painter's training.

And a command over this power of representation and expression is
absolutely necessary if he is to be capable of doing anything worthy of
his art.

This is all in art that one can attempt to teach. The emotional side is
beyond the scope of teaching. You cannot teach people how to feel. All
you can do is to surround them with the conditions calculated to
stimulate any natural feeling they may possess. And this is done by