147. Finally, observe that what is true respecting these simple forms of drapery is true of all other inorganic form. It must become organic under the artist's hand by his invention. As there must not be a fold in a vestment too few or too many, there must not, in noble landscape, be a fold in a mountain, too few or too many. As you will never get from real linen cloth, by copying it ever so faithfully, the drapery of a noble statue, so you will never get from real mountains, copy them never so faithfully, the forms of noble landscape. Anything more beautiful than the photographs of the Valley of Chamouni, now in your print-sellers' windows, cannot be conceived. For geographical and geological purposes they are worth anything; for art purposes, worth--a good deal less than zero. You may learn much from them, and will mislearn more. But in Turner's "Valley of Chamouni" the mountains have not a fold too much, nor too little. There are no such mountains at Chamouni: they are the ghosts of eternal mountains, such as have been, and shall be, for evermore. 148. So now in sum, for I may have confused you by illustration,-- I. You are, in drawing, to try only to represent the appearances of things, never what you know the things to be. II. Those appearances you are to test by the appliance of the scientific laws relating to aspect; and to learn, by accurate measurement, and the most fixed attention, to represent with absolute fidelity. III. Having learned to represent actual appearances faithfully, if you have any human faculty of your own, visionary appearances will take place to you which will be nobler and more true than any actual or material appearances; and the realization of these is the function of every fine art, which is founded absolutely, therefore, in truth, and consists absolutely in imagination. And once more we may conclude with, but now using them in a deeper sense, the words of our master--"The best in this kind are but shadows." * * * * * It is to be our task, gentlemen, to endeavour that they may be at least so much. LECTURE VIII. THE RELATION TO ART OF THE SCIENCES OF ORGANIC FORM. _March 2nd, 1872._ 149. I have next in order to speak of the relation of art to science, in dealing with its own principal subject--organic form, as the expression of life. And, as in my former lecture, I will tell you at once what I wish chiefly to enforce upon you. First,--but this I shall have no time to dwell upon,--That the true power of art must be founded on a general knowledge of organic nature, not of the human frame only. Secondly.--That in representing this organic nature, quite as much as in representing inanimate things, Art has nothing to do with structures, causes, or absolute facts; but only with appearances.