(_β_) In the _second_ place, however, objects are not only placed at a certain distance from one another, but they also differ in _shape._ This particular mode of their spatial limitation by virtue of which every object is made visible in its particular form is the subject-matter of _draughtsmanship._ The art of drawing gives us for the first time not merely the comparative distance of objects from one another, but their respective configuration. Its most important principle is _accuracy_ of form and relative distance, which of course in the first instance is not as yet associated with ideal[281] expression, but related simply to external appearance, and consequently forms the purely external framework[282], an accuracy, however, which, more particularly in the case of organic forms and their varied movements, is on account of the fore-shortenings thereby rendered necessary one of extreme difficulty. In so far as these two aspects are related purely to _form_ and its spatial totality they constitute the _plastic_ or sculpturesque features in painting, which this art, for the very reason that it expresses what is most ideal in its significance by means of external form, can as little dispense with as it can in another respect remain solely content with. For its supreme task is the employment of colour, and in such a way that in all that is truly painting distance and shape only attain and discover their genuine presentment by virtue of the distinctions of colour. (_γ_) It is, therefore, _colour_, and the art of colouring, which make the painter a painter. We dwell with pleasure, no doubt, on the drawing, and exceptionally so on the study or sketch, as on that which pre-eminently betrays the quality of genius; but however rich with invention and imagination, with whatever directness the soul of an artist may assert itself in such studies by reason of the more transparent and mobile shell of their form, yet the fact remains to be painting we must have colour, if the work is not to continue abstract from the point of view of its sensuous material in the vital individuality and articulation of its objects. We must, however, at the same time admit that drawings and dry point drawings from the hand of great masters such as Raphael and Albrecht Dürer are of real importance. In fact from a certain point of view we may say that it is just these hand drawings which carry with them the finest interest. We find here the wonderful result that the entire spirit of the master is expressed directly in such manual facility, a facility which places with the greatest ease, in instantaneous work, without any preliminary essays, the essential substance of the master's conception. The border drawings of Dürer, for example, in the Prayer-book of the Munich library, are of indescribable ideality and freedom. Idea and execution appear in such a case to be one and the same thing, whereas in finished pictures we cannot avoid the sense that the consummate result is only