The proposition that art is _imitation of nature_ has also several
meanings. Now truth has been maintained or at least shadowed with these
words, now error. More frequently, nothing definite has been thought.
One of the legitimate scientific meanings occurs when imitation is
understood as representation or intuition of nature, a form of
knowledge. And when this meaning has been understood, by placing in
greater relief the spiritual character of the process, the other
proposition becomes also legitimate: namely, that art is the
_idealization_ or _idealizing_ imitation of nature. But if by imitation
of nature be understood that art gives mechanical reproductions, more or
less perfect duplicates of natural objects, before which the same tumult
of impressions caused by natural objects begins over again, then the
proposition is evidently false. The painted wax figures that seem to be
alive, and before which we stand astonished in the museums where such
things are shown, do not give aesthetic intuitions. Illusion and
hallucination have nothing to do with the calm domain of artistic
intuition. If an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if
an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we
again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if
photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent
that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view,
the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. And if it be
not altogether art, that is precisely because the element of nature in
it remains more or less insubordinate and ineradicable. Do we ever,
indeed, feel complete satisfaction before even the best of photographs?
Would not an artist vary and touch up much or little, remove or add
something to any of them?

[Sidenote] _Critique of art conceived as a sentimental not a