rily with actions that succeed one another in
time. The space-arts -- painting, sculpture,
architecture -- deal primarily with bodies
that coexist in space. Hence there are some
subjects that belong naturally in the "paint-
ing" group, and others that belong as natu-
rally in the "poetry" group. The artist
should not "confuse the genres," or, to quote
Whistler again, he should not push a medium
further than it will go. Recent psychology
has more or less upset Lessing's technical
theory of vision. ¹ but it has confirmed the
value of his main contention as to the fields
of the various arts.

An illustration will make this matter clear.
Let us take the Greek myth of Orpheus and
Eurydice, which has been utilized by many
artists during more than two thousand years
assuredly, and how much longer no one knows.
Virgil told it in the Georgics and Ovid in the
Metamorphoses. It became a favorite theme
of medieval romance, and whether told in
a French lai or Scottish ballad like "King

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