The Creative power within the Soul must at last come forth in fashioning the images of living things and in Symbolizing Ideals.

The "Ideographs" of the ancients were attempted illustrations: 1st, of thoughts that language now conveys; 2nd, of Images of real or Ideal beings, such as the Deities and Tutelar gods presiding over the nations or people.

The Modern Student and lover of Sculpture must turn to Greece and Italy as the Source of inspiration of the "Beautiful and Immortal" works of Art in Stone. The more ancient works, many of which have been recently disentombed from buried cities, are exceedingly interesting from the viewpoint of the Scholar; but the perception of beauty, which is the soul of Art, and its only excuse for being seems to be wholly lacking in many, if not all, instances, if we go back of these two nations already named.

Isis nowhere unveils for us her transcendent loveliness in the tablets and portraitures of Egypt or India. And the "vestals," although somewhat gracefully carved in the temples, are far from the perfection of form that appeared when this Art had its birth in Greece.

Beauty, perfectness of form, must be the one excuse for sculpture. Some of the Oriental images of the deities, like those of Buddha, are repulsive in the extreme; and often the lack of physical perfection so mars the images and bas relief of the temples as to produce far other emotions than those of worship.

But the works that survive all time, and even in fragments make the glory of the ages of Sculpture, only pass when all things mutable must pass away.

Many of the "Masters" were alike perfect in sculpture and painting and indeed in architecture, while in a few notable instances poetry formed also a portion of their peerless gifts.

Painting. Form - Color - yes, the imitation of Nature goes far back. No one knows those enduring pigments of Egypt and the Orient. Sufficient is it to know that at the head of each group was the Master, the Angel of the time and place. At the present we must be satistied with that wonderful illustration of the Group, in the midst of which Michelangelo and Leonardo lived and worked - that galaxy of stars that shone out with such resplendence as to eclipse all other lights.

As in every other form of Art-expression, and in Religion, Government, and social customs, each nation and period has its own particular ideals and methods, so in Painting (the reproduction in form and color of natural images, or the projection into color and form of ideals), there has been found the wonderful diversity and divergence of the Art of Painting.

Perfect in the guiding and blending of colors - some have lacked form (perception of proportion), or where outlines might be perfect, color is imperfect.

The Oriental nations seemed to have ideas of painting so at variance with those of the Hellenic and Western nations, that there isn't even room for comparison; and the pictures can be called, in many instances, but little more than Ideographs; in fact, it is difficult in Egyptology to decide which is pictorial and which ideographic.

The Chinese have an Art of painting peculiarly their own, as also have the Japanese. And one must know the nations and histories of their art to understand them.

For all purposes of illustrating the creative imagination of the true artist, we must turn to those periods of painting called: "Flemish," "Impressionistic," "Pre-Raphaeletism," "Renaissance," etc, which, with their Artist leaders and groups, form the distinctive "schools" or "periods" of painting. In every instance, however, a Master (or Angel) must have led the way and given the stamp of perfect art. Painting, however, is but to convey an idea, and is, therefore, but another form of language.

No attempt is made in these lessons to classify or arrange the period and artists in more modern "schools." They are too near and, besides, students have access to them and can judge for themselves.

Whenever and wherever the perfect creative power exists in man it must find in its human expression that Perfect Art is the perfect expression OF THE Ideal, employing every method, but disguising all methods in the perfect presentation of the conception of beauty from the Soul.

Thence there is: