We have all heard of the critic fly; but none of us
doubts the compass of his own vision. It is thus that a high work of
art, still more that a high and original mind, may at all times
calculate on much sorriest criticism. In looking at an extraordinary
man, it were good for an ordinary man to be sure of _seeing_ him,
before attempting to _oversee_ him. Having ascertained that Goethe is
an object deserving study, it will be time to censure his faults when
we have clearly estimated his merits; and if we are wise judges, not
till then.
WALTER PATER.
(1839-1894)
XI.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI.
Of the critics who have written during the last sixty years, Mr. Pater
is probably the most remarkable. His work is always weighted with
thought, and his thought is always fused with imagination. He unites,
in a singular degree of intensity, the two crucial qualities of the
critic, on the one hand a sense of form and colour and artistic
utterance, on the other hand a speculative instinct which pierces
behind these to the various types of idea and mood and character that
underlie them.
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