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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are
satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth
and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the
things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise
about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is
required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them
forth. But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick
at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges
of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may
observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a
picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to
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