Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/135

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placed at various distances one from the other, why some will appear more clearly than others, And this art embraces and comprehends within itself all visible things, which sculpture in its po- verty cannot do: that is, the colours of all objects and their gradations; it represents transparent objects, and the sculptor will show thee natural objects without the painter's devices; the painter will show thee various distances with the grada- tions of colour producing interposition of the air between the objects and the eye; he will show thee the mists through which the character of ob- jects is with difficulty descried; the rains which clouded mountains and valleys bring with them; the dust which is inherent to and follows the con- tention between these forces; the rivers which are great or small in volume; the fishes disport- ing themselves on the surface or at the bottom of these waters; the polished pebbles of various col- ours which are collected on the washed sands at bottom of rivers surrounded by floating plants beneath the surface of the water; the stars at di- verse heights above us ; and in the same manner other innumerable effects to which sculpture can- not attain.

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Sculpture lacks the beauty of colours, the per- spective of colours; it lacks perspective and it confuses the limits of objects remote from the

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