Page:William Blake (Symons).djvu/232

 208 . Whoever is set to Undermine the Execution of Art is set to destroy Art. Michael Angelo's Art depends on Michael Angelo's Execution Altogether. . . . He who admires Rafael Must admire Rafael's Execution. He who does not admire Rafael's Execution can not admire Rafael.' Finally, 'the great and golden rule of art as well as of life,' he says in the Descriptive Catalogue, 'is this: that the more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art; and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak imagination, plagiarism, and bungling. . . . What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery, but the hard and wiry line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and intentions? Leave out this line, and you leave out life itself. All is chance again, and the line of the Almighty must be drawn out upon it again, before man or beast can exist.'

In Blake's work a great fundamental conception is rarely lacking, and the conception is not, as it has often been asserted, a literary, but always a pictorial, one. At times imagination and execution are wholly