_Alfred Stevens._[1]

[Footnote 1: The Belgian painter, not the English sculptor.]


II

Art, like love, excludes all competition, and absorbs the man.

_Fuseli._


III

A good painter has two chief objects to paint, namely, man, and the
intention of his soul. The first is easy, the second difficult, because
he has to represent it through the attitudes and movements of the limbs.
This should be learnt from the dumb, who do it better than any other
sort of person.

_Leonardo da Vinci._


IV

In my judgment that is the excellent and divine painting which is most
like and best imitates any work of immortal God, whether a human figure,
or a wild and strange animal, or a simple and easy fish, or a bird of
the air, or any other creature. And this neither with gold nor silver
nor with very fine tints, but drawn only with a pen or a pencil, or with