From Phidias to Clodion, from Correggio to Fragonard, from the greatest
to the least of those who have deserved the name of master, Art has been
pursuing the Chimæra, attempting to reconcile two opposites--the most
slavish fidelity to nature and the most absolute independence of her, an
independence so absolute that the work of art may claim to be a
creation. This is the persistent problem offered by the unstable
character of the point of view at which it is approached; the whole
mystery of art. The subject, as presented in nature, cannot keep the
place which art with its transforming instinct would assign it; and
therefore a single formula can never be adequate to the totality of
nature's manifestations; the draughtsman will talk of its form, a
colourist of its effect.
Considered in this light, nature is nothing more than one of the
instruments of the arts, in the same category with their principles,
elements, formulas, conventions, tools.
_Bracquemond._