John Constable, a contemporary of Reynolds, and to whose judgment we have already referred, further expressed his opinion upon this subject. A statement of principle by him seems to be conviction crystallized. Constable, although unaccustomed to writing, even unaccustomed to discussion, because he was a man of quiet and simple life, seems to have thought profoundly; and when the rare occasion to express his opinion did come he condensed within a few words a great fundamental principle with unerring precision. His definition of the purpose and method of the artist cannot, I think, be excelled for accuracy or fullness of meaning. He wrote: “In art, there are two modes by which men aim at distinction; in the one, by a careful application to what others have accomplished, the artist imitates their works, or selects and combines their various beauties; in the other, he seeks excellence at its primitive source, nature. In the first, he forms a style upon the study of pictures, and produces either imitative or eclectic art; in the second, by a close observation of nature, he discovers qualities existing in her which have never been portrayed before, and thus forms a style which is original. The results of the one mode, as they repeat that with which the eye is already familiar, are soon recognized and estimated, while the advances of the artist in a new path must necessarily be slow, for few are able to judge of that which deviates from the usual course, or qualified to appreciate original studies.” There is here no mystery or ambiguity. This is the statement of a profound truth by a great painter who knew perfectly his reliance upon nature. It was prompted by the conviction of a great mind which saw only the underlying fact and abjured all trivialities and hair-splitting theories. In his mental attitude and grasp, Constable was like Winslow Homer, a man of few words, one given to much thought and to firm convictions. [SN: _Sir Thomas Lawrence_] In one of his lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Constable said: “It was said by Sir Thomas Lawrence, that ‘we can never hope to compete with nature in the beauty and delicacy of her separate forms or colours, our only chance lies in selection and combination.’” [SN: _Gilbert Stuart_] Gilbert Stuart expressed a like reliance upon nature when he said: “You must copy nature, but if you leave nature for an imaginary effect, you will lose all. Nature cannot be excused, and as your object is to copy nature, it is the height of folly to work at anything else to produce that copy.” [SN: _Corot_] Corot was equally assured of the importance of this principle to an artist. He said: “Truth is the first thing in art, and the second, and the third.” [SN: _Millet_]