Actually, the principle of copying nature faithfully hardly has any meaning. Since it is impossible to exhaust her individuality with any one copy; and since a copy must always choose which traits it leaves out or includes, the question of imitation becomes the new question: following what law, by the hand of what artist, is nature raised into the realm of poetry? – Jean Paul Richter, The Horn of Oberon: Jean Paul Richter’s School for Aesthetics. (Image, James W. Voshell, Apple tree in snow, 1993, pencil on paper.)