In other directions, especially in Europe, it is more difficult to unravel the lines of art, or to specify, without numberless exceptions and modifications, the distinctive aims of artists or schools. The example of the Orientals has led some manufacturers to choose the production of color as their great aim. They have no intelligent comprehension of its higher uses, as these might be studied in Chinese decoration. They form an exaggerated estimate of Oriental processes, and seek to equal the wonderful coloring of the faience of Persia or Rhodes. If they fail, as is generally the case, they are in no way deterred from using their inferior colors as the Orientals used the riches of their palette. Instead of turning toward a new object within the compass of their lower skill, they appeal to the eye with works which, by suggesting comparison with the models that inspired them, are at once condemned. If a vase of Nankin porcelain should be placed side by side with a Delft copy, the force of this will at once be seen. It is comparatively easy to assign a place to Palissy. His career deserves study as an illustration of the movement of art between the conventional and the natural. As we look back upon his works, we find that truth to nature, in both form and color, was the guiding motive in the production of his most remarkable pieces. We owe the romance of his life to his earnestness in attempting to solve the mysteries of enamel. “I thought,” he says, “that if I could discover the invention of making enamel, I should be able to make vessels of earth, and other things of beautiful arrangements, _because Heaven had given me to understand something of painting_; and thenceforth, without considering that I had no knowledge of argillaceous earth, I set about seeking enamel like a man who gropes in the dark.” The story of his trials, his failures and successes, his poverty, honors and persecutions, compose the great romance in the history of ceramics. What he attained was, first, a white enamel; then, jasper glaze of warm tints of blue, brown, and white; lastly, his _Rustiques figulines_ (Fig. 17). The last was his crowning effort. We regard him both as the leading representative of French art in the sixteenth century, and as a great originator. He had made, after long struggle and endeavor, a great discovery in enamelling; but what we admire more than that is the ideal he had formed. He developed skill, and aimed at both beauty and likeness. Palissy was great because, having chosen a certain line of art, he adopted the only ideal by which he could possibly reach perfection, viz., absolute truth to nature, alike in form and color. He neither spared himself nor overlooked any detail. His moulds were formed from living specimens. We recognize every ornament--shells of the district round Paris, reptiles and plants from the same places, and fish from the Seine. He did not dare to improve or conventionalize.