"It is very wonderful painting, but there's nothing under the paint that I can see."
"Nothing but the canvas—in so far at least as the spectator is concerned.
Every work of art must have a secret history only known to its creator."
"What the divil d'you mean, Paul?" asked Brady.
"You know what I mean well enough," answered the first speaker coldly. "My views are not unfamiliar to any of you. Here is a thing without a soul—to me."
"God! you say that! You can look at those eyes and say that?"
"I admire the painting, but cui bono? Who is the better, the wiser?
There is nothing under the paint."
"You are one of those who turn shadows into crosses, clouds into angels. Is it not so?" asked Barron smiling; and the other fired at this allusion to his best known picture.
"I am one of those who know that Art is the handmaid of God," he answered hotly. "I happen to believe in Jesus Christ, and I conceive that no picture is worthy to be called great or worthy of any Christian's painting unless it possess some qualities calculated to ennoble the mind of those who see. Art is the noblest labor man can employ time upon. The thing comes from God; it is a talent only to be employed in the highest sense when devoted to His glory."
"Then what of heathen art? You let your religion distort your view of Nature. You sacrifice truth to a dogma. Nature has no ethics. You profess to paint facts and paint them wrong. You are not a mystic; that we could understand and criticise accordingly. You try to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You talk about truth and paint things not true."
"From your standpoint possibly. Yours is the truth of naturalism; mine is the truth of Faith."