Real and Ideal—these are the handy terms, admiringor disapproving, which criticism claps with randomfacility on to every imaginable school. This artistor group of artists goes in for the real—the upright,noble, trumpery, filthy real; that other artist or groupof artists seeks after the ideal—the ideal which maymean sublimity or platitude. We summon everyliving artist to state whether he is a realist or anidealist; we classify all dead artists as realists oridealists; we treat the matter as if it were one ofalmost moral importance. Now the fact of the caseis that the question of realism and idealism, whichwe calmly assume as already settled or easy to settleby our own sense of right and wrong, is one of thetangled questions of art-philosophy; and one, moreover,which no amount of theory, but only historicfact, can ever set right. For, to begin with, we findrealism and idealism coming before us in differentways and with different meaning and importance.All art which is not addressing (as decrepit art isforced to do) faculties to which it does not spontaneouslyand properly appeal—all art is decorative, ornamental,idealistic therefore, since it consciously orunconsciously aims, not merely at reproducing thealready existing, but at producing something whichshall repay the looking at it, something which shall ornament,if not a place, at least our lives; and such makingof the ornamental, of the worth looking at, necessarilyimplies selection and arrangement—that is to sayidealism. At the same time, while art aims definitelyat being in this sense decorative, art may very possiblyaim more immediately at merely reproducing, without,selection or arrangement, the actually existing thingsof the world; and this in order to obtain the merepower of representation. In short, art which is idealisticas a master will yet be realistic as a scholar: itdecorates when it achieves, it copies when it studies.But this is only half the question. Certain wholeschools may be described as idealistic, others asrealistic, in tendency; and this, not in their study, butin their achievement. One school will obviously becontented with forms the most unselected and vulgar;others will go but little out of their way in search ofform-superiority; while yet others, and these we mustemphatically call idealistic, are squeamish to the lastdegree in the choice and adaptation of form, anxious,to get the very best, and make the very best of it.Yet, on thinking over it, we shall find that realistic.and idealistic schools are all, in their achievements,equally striving after something which is not the merereproduction of the already existing as such—striving,in short, after decoration. The pupil of Peruginowill, indeed, wait patiently to begin his work until hecan find a model fit for a god or goddess; while thefellow-craftsman of Rembrandt will be satisfied withthe first dirty old Jew or besotten barmaid that comesto hand. But the realistic Dutchman is not, therefore,any the less smitten with beauty, any the less eagerto be ornamental, than the idealisti