In the conditions governing the production of the picture, every means
has been explored. The most difficult problem was that of complete
relief, depth of perspective carried to the point of perfect illusion.
The stereoscope has solved the problem. It only remains now to combine
this perfection with the other kinds of perfection already found. Let no
man imagine that art, bound by these conditions of the plane surface,
can ever free itself from the circle which limits it. It is easy to
foresee that its last word will soon have been said.

_Wiertz._


XXIII

In his admirable book on Shakespeare, Victor Hugo has shown that there
is no progress in the arts. Nature, their model, is unchangeable; and
the arts cannot transcend her limits. They attain completeness of
expression in the work of a master, on whom other masters are formed.
Then comes development, and then a lapse, an interval. By-and-by, art is
born anew under the stimulus of a man who catches from Light a new
convention.

_Bracquemond._


XXIV

The painter ... does not set his palette with the real hues of the
rainbow. When he pictures to us the character of a hero, or paints some
scene of nature, he does not present us with a living man in the