Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/37

Rh, of life in action or repose. But you will perceive that even the rude joinery on which he casts his first clay is a structure suggesting a man's interior framework. Ere long the skeleton is built upon; the nude and very man is modeled roughly, yet complete, so that his anatomy shall give the truth, and not a lie, to the finished work. Not until this has been done will the sculptor superadd the drapery—the costume which, be it the symbol of our fall or of our advancement, distinguishes civilized man from the lower animals. At all events, it is a serious risk for the young artist to forego this progressive craftsmanship. Even a painter will rudely outline his figures according to primitive nature before giving them the clothing, which, however full of grace and meaning, is not themselves. Otherwise he will be a painter of dead garments, not of soul-possessing men and women. An artist of learning and experience may overleap this process, but only because his hand has become the trained slave of his creative vision, which sees clearly all that can lie beneath.

To the anatomic laws, then, of the human form the sculptor's and the figure-painter's arts Preëssentials. are subservient. The laws of every art are just as determinate, even those pertaining to the evasive, yet all-embracing art of poesy, whose spirit calls other arts to its aid and will imitate them, as art itself imitates nature; which has, in truth, its specific method and also the reflex of all other methods. I