Art is not concerned with what are termed ideal physical qualities because beauty is its first consideration. A form with powerful limbs and muscles may be generally accepted as an ideal form of strength, but these very limbs and muscles would detract from the beauty of the figure, and so separately such a form would be inferior art. An ideal can only be applied to excellence. In art, moral or physical deformity cannot be exaggerated for the purpose of emphasis or contrast without lessening the deformity or injuring the art. In the work of the greater artists the former result follows; in that of less skilful artists, the latter. Homer could not deal with evil characters without exciting a certain sympathy with them, thus diminishing the deformity in the minds 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 counteracting influences. With rare exceptions the greater artists have not failed to recognize this truth,[37] and in respect of the very greatest men, no really hideous figure is to be found in any of their works, if we except certain instances where the artist had to comply with fixed rules and conditions, as for example in Michelangelo's Last Judgment where evil beings had perforce to be presented, and could only be shown as deformities. Attempts to emphasize ugliness by artists of inferior rank result in the fantastic or the ludicrous, as in the representation of evil spirits on the old Etruscan tombs, and the whimsical imps of the Breughels and the younger Teniers. CHAPTER VII EXPRESSION. PART II.--CHRISTIAN IDEALS The Deity--Christ--The Madonna--The Madonna and Child.