“Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is, it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in light and shade; and, were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his forms or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black and white to the end of his life.”[41] For practical purposes truths of form are more essential than ‘truths’ of color; to mistake the size, shape, solidity, and texture of anything is far more disastrous than to mistake its color. The color-blind get on very well in the world, often without knowing their defect; but a person who was form-blind would not get on at all. The correct appreciation of form is of such vital importance that two senses are brought to bear,--the sense of touch--the parent sense--as well as the sense of sight; and without the co-operation of the sense of touch, sight would be comparatively helpless in recognizing solidity, texture, contours, etc. In the appreciation of form touch gets on very well without sight, while sight could not get on at all without touch; but, happily, a sense so precious is never completely lost. Ruskin constantly uses the phrases, “truths of form,” “truths of color,” and it is apparent that by these phrases he really means fidelity to natural effects. With him a drawing, be it of a stone, a leaf, a tree, a mountain, is not _true_ unless it corresponds to the thing in nature; nor is a light or a shadow or a color _true_ unless it corresponds to the effect in nature. Now, so far as art is concerned, those so-called “truths” are of the least importance. Suppose a musician were to talk of “truths of sound,” meaning thereby the more or less faithful imitation of the songs of birds, the rippling of waters, the roll of thunder. Every one would know that his art was of the most primitive character. “Truths of sound,” in the sense that Ruskin speaks of “truths of form” and “truths of color,” are not tolerated in music. To attain certain effects, dramatic in character, imitations of sounds in nature are sometimes introduced, but sparingly, and unless with great skill the effect is disagreeable to even the uneducated ear, and if pressed too far it becomes grotesque. One art is like unto another, and what are really “truths” in one are “truths” in another. It is immaterial whether the sense of hearing, sight, or touch is appealed to; it does not matter whether it is a composition of sound, of color, of line, or of form that is under consideration, the fundamental principles of the art are the same; and one of the fundamental propositions is: imitation is fatal to pure art.