Art Principles

spect of the value of abstract qualities connected with it. There can be no ideal of the human form separately, because this implies expression which results from abstract qualities. Nor ca

fect generalization of the highest conce

s; and so invariable is this experience that the progression towards similar ideals has all the force of law.36 This general agreement is subject to certain restrictions. The first is in regard to form in which the imagination cannot proceed beyond experience. The component parts of an ideal form cannot include any which are higher in quality than those which have come within the experience of the person compounding the ideal. Secondly, in regard to abstract qualities, the estimation of these depends upon intelligence and education, and the accumulated experience of these things, which we measure in terms of degrees

able spiritual personage-the Supreme Being. In its absolute perfection it may be significant of the Supreme Being of any religion of civilized peoples, but not of other spiritual personages to whom such perfection may also b

n ideal has been executed. As a type of an Almighty Power the best Christian representation is distinctly inferior, and it must necessarily be so because convention requires that a particular feature of expression must be indicated therein which is not compulsory in the Grecian ideal. Forgiveness of sins is a cardinal principle in the Christian doctrine, and conseq

s type with certain special characteristics, though often they can only be distinguished from each other by symbols. They are above human life and so cannot be appropriately as

form with powerful limbs and muscles may be generally accepted as an ideal form of strength, but these very li

of his readers. There is a measure of nobility about Shakespeare's bad men, and Milton distinctly ennobled Satan in portraying his evil powers and influence. In painting and sculpture there is no place for hideous forms of any description, for they either revolt the imagination and so neutralize the appreciation of the beautiful figures present in the composition, or they verge upon the ridiculous and disturb the mind with countera

astic or the ludicrous, as in the representation of evil spirits on the old E