"Would you really like it, godfather?" said Edward, with a shake of the head. "No, my good friend, if my heresies have reached your ears after all, let us come to an honorable understanding; and here in Paradise, at all events, let us wear no cloaks. You know that all paintings that represent thought make my head ache; that, to my mind, a single thoughtless Venus of Titian outweighs a whole Olympus full of spiritual motives, such as swarm about like ants over your big pound-cake of an allegorical mountain. Yes, we are old antipodes, my dear godfather; which fact, by-the-way, does not lessen our friendship. On the contrary, when I see how you and your creations are losing flesh through pure intellect, I feel a hearty compassion mingled with my esteem. You should try a milk-cure, my good godfather, at the full breasts of our old mother Nature; you should follow the flesh for a year or so, instead of high ideas--"
"It is not every tree that has its bark full grown," interposed Kohle, meekly.
"True. But a tree that has no bark at all!--and, you see, that's just how your whole style appears to me, you mighty disciple of Cornelius! We see the complicated structure of your thoughts, we see how the sap of your ideas circulates through it; all of which is very remarkable and edifying, but anything rather than artistic. For ought not true art to work upon us like a higher Nature, without putting forth much ingenuity and subtilty, without all that complication of poetical affinities and philosophical _finesse_? No, it should be simple and plain, but purified by the flame of genius from all weakness, all defects, and every kind of wretchedness. For instance, in the contemplation of a beautiful woman, lying there so quietly, or of a stately senator, or of an 'Adoration of the Kings,' how much does one think about the ingenuity of the thing? Either it conveys no meaning, or an incomprehensible one, or even an unprofitable one. And yet it charms us, even across the whole width of the hall, merely by its _silhouette_, or its wealth of color, or its simple and majestic sensuous beauty, such as we seldom or never find in Nature without some vulgar adjunct. On the other hand, take a poem in picture like the one before us--I invariably find myself searching at the foot of the frame to see whether the draughtsman has not added some notes that may serve to explain the text. A printed paper answers the whole purpose quite as well, something entitled 'The picture and its description;' and the dear Philistine who talks about the 'arts of culture'--because he thinks it is with his own special culture that they have to do--is only too happy if he can imagine that he is going through some connected process of thought while he looks at it. But _I_ say, long live the art that leaves no room for thought! And, now, give me something to drink!"