Beauty in observation

It takes patience to observe admittedly that the canvas of the painting has been artful, well before the painter made his first stroke. But it lacked beauty; a superior possibility to offer the self-satisfaction of a pleasant experience to the beholder.

Whatever the subject, a true artist always transfers to the canvas, and renders permanent to all visible eyes — a moral beauty: not mere animal beauty, not even the mere virtue of the form, but a higher kind, a spiritual beauty.