Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and again to allege in support of many future deductions:
“All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other objects better attainable with other materials.”
Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,—as in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of hair,—is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture.
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