Behold what glorious possibility for the direction of the artist’s aspirations toward the Beautiful!  But even this happy chance by no means includes all of the possible conceptions of the Ideal, and neither does it furnish us any absolute idea or definition.  This vision of beauty, made ideal by exaltation of the intelligence and the emotion, can only be perceived by the artist of practiced observation and of that intuitive perception which is the gift of nature.

Again considered, the Ideal, being relative as well as the Beautiful, of which it is the exuberance, we must remember that the word is far from corresponding to an idea of absolute beauty.  Thus the Ideal of an ordinary taste is not so high as that of a person whose standard of beauty is superior, and the two will be very distant from the image conceived by the pen, the chisel or the brush of a great artist.  In many cases the Ideal is nothing but a searching for the intention of nature, obliterated by the circumstances and accidents of life.  Then the task of the artist should be to reestablish the type in his logic—­a vulgar face may be portrayed by a skilful brush—­and, while preserving its features, there may be put into it the culture of intellect and noble sentiments.

An artist, for instance, will see in a woman, whom time has tried, certain elements of beauty which enable him to portray her nearly as she was at the age of twenty years.  He should be able to divine in the young girl, according to the normal development of her features, her appearance at the complete unfolding of her beauty.  Yes; in these different cases the artist shall have idealized, since he shall have comprehended, penetrated, interpreted and rectified nature.  Still, he may not yet have attained to the comprehension of perfect beauty, such, at least, as human emotion and intellect can conceive, and such as we love to imagine as inhabiting the superior spheres of the universe of which we know nothing further than the dictate of our reason, namely, that they are inhabited by beings more or less like ourselves.

When these sublime effects appear in art, it is as though a veil were torn, revealing glimpses of a world of ideas, emotions and impressions, surpassing our comprehension, approachable only by our aspirations.

Thus, Delsarte, superior to his science, has shown us the artist in full possession of all that he has acquired, and the inmost charm of that which is revealed to him.  In execution he proved this truth:  If talent may be born of science, it is genius which distinguishes the highest personalities, and to merit the title of high artistic personality one must contain in himself an essence indescribable, unutterable, which constitutes the aureole of grand brows, and the sign luminous of great works of art.

    Thus, as virtue, art has its degrees.

Art, in its most simple expression, is the faithful representation of nature.  If the conception of a work or of a type is elevated to a degree of perfection which satisfies at once the plastic sense, the emotion and the intellect, we will call it Grand Art.